Our booming population faces a crippling shortage of homes January 12, 2014 ANOTHER day, another report providing yet more evidence that Britain’s housing crisis is getting worse. Countrywide estimates that England will face a shortfall of 1m homes by 2021, half of which will be in London and the South East. The problem, of course, is that our planning rules have throttled house-building in the UK, guaranteeing [...]
The dovish consensus is wrong: It is time for interest rate hikes January 9, 2014 ECONOMISTS seem to lurch from one dangerous fad to another. In the late 1980s, most supported the European exchange rate mechanism, which blew up spectacularly; in the 1990s, many supported UK membership of the euro, which would have been a disaster; during the 2000s, few saw the bubble coming and most missed the credit and [...]
Our pension system is broken. We must tear it up and start again January 8, 2014 OUR pension system is broken. The public doesn’t save enough and is forced, for the most part, to rely on the state to finance all or a large part of its retirement years; and even though the government is being much more generous to pensioners than to any other group, and their benefits are now [...]
The government owns far too much land. It must sell a lot off January 7, 2014 SELL, sell, sell – or so we must hope. With a bit of luck, the government is finally about to kick-start a massive and long-overdue sell-off of its vast estate. All of central government’s land and property holdings – worth £330bn – will soon be available for perusal on a Rightmove-style website. Individuals and companies [...]
France’s failed socialist experiment is turning into a tragedy January 6, 2014 FRANCE is still France – and that, tragically, is why that great country and its wonderful people are doomed to decline further this year, and why even more successful French business folk, entrepreneurs and professionals will move to London over the next 12 months. While many other countries are recovering strongly, France is sinking again, [...]
My predictions for 2014 for the economy, markets and politics January 6, 2014 HAPPY New Year, dear readers, and welcome to our first edition of 2014. As ever, we devote a sizeable chunk of this issue to trying, as best as we can, to predict some of the big economic, political, market, financial and corporate events of the year ahead. We do so with humility: as Mark Twain [...]
New issues make a strong comeback in the London market December 18, 2013 As the year comes to an end there’s definitely cause for celebration in London’s new issues or Initial Public Offering (IPO) market. According to figures out today from EY, the advisory firm, there were 14 main market share listings this year, raising £5.2bn. That’s not exactly an avalanche of deals but the total represents a [...]
Debenhams demands a little help from its suppliers (again) December 17, 2013 SUPPLIERS to Debenhams got a nasty shock yesterday when the retail giant wrote to them asking for a contribution to the group’s recent investment programme. It’s not the first time they have been asked for extra support. Earlier this year they were asked to extend payment terms from 90 to 120 days. In the latest [...]
Standard Chartered would do better being more upfront December 16, 2013 BEFORE and during the financial crisis, which rocked so many banks to their foundations, Standard Chartered could seemingly do nothing wrong. While their rivals dodged in and around write-downs, rescue rights issues and increased impairment charges, the stock of both chief executive Peter Sands and his ebullient finance director Richard Meddings rose sky-high. So highly [...]
Collins makes a good start at KPMG but the hard part’s to come December 15, 2013 This probably hasn’t been the easiest year to be the top dog at one of the country’s big four accountancy groups. The industry is still wracked with self doubt as to whether it should or could have spotted the problems that led to the financial crash earlier, and, to make matters worse, the Big Four [...]