Top ten considerations for investors surrounding new leasing standard April 15, 2019 | City Talk At long last, a company’s lease obligations – formerly buried in the back of the footnotes of the financial statements – are moving front and centre onto the balance sheet, as a new leasing standard goes into effect for both US GAAP and IFRS companies effective 1 January 2019. That’s just around the corner as [...]
AA: A sustainable recovery of its own? April 12, 2019 | City Talk After a decent start to 2019, our head of markets kicks the tyres after these uninspiring results. There is certainly a great deal going on under the bonnet at AA (LSE:AA.), although by its own admission there remains much to be done. One measure of progress is the number of contract wins the company has [...]
Hedge fund returns hit seven-year high after third consecutive month of growth April 11, 2019 Hedge funds saw the third consecutive month of positive returns in March, which marked best year-to-date aggregate returns since 2012. In March hedge funds gained an average of 0.97 per cent, which brought the average year-to-date gains to a seven-year high of 5.4. Read more: Hedge funds take out £86m bets against British Gas owner [...]
We pick six investment managers to beat Brexit blues April 11, 2019 | City Talk By Jemma Jackson from interactive investor. With MPs failing to agree a Brexit outcome, we name the funds and trusts to weather the political storm. Charles de Gaulle reportedly said that “politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.” With the chaos currently surrounding Brexit, and as MPs are united only [...]
10 reasons to sell a share April 10, 2019 | City Talk It’s generally accepted that it is more difficult to sell a share than to buy one. After all, the buying part ties you in to a share of a company. You have identified a share you like, done your research, consider that the current valuation is fair and that the company’s prospects are strong, so [...]
Debate: Should personal auto-enrolment pension contributions rise above the current level of five per cent? April 10, 2019 Should personal auto-enrolment pension contributions rise above the current level of five per cent? Yes – Samantha Seaton is chief executive of Moneyhub. The introduction of auto-enrolment has been hugely positive, and it has offered a great opportunity for people to better engage with their finances. The hard truth, however, is that even saving the minimum [...]
You’ve been served: A look at the growing trend for divorce loans April 10, 2019 Divorce law in England and Wales is set for an overhaul. New rules announced yesterday will prevent one partner refusing a divorce when the other partner wants one. It’s hoped that the reform will speed up “no-fault” divorces, allowing couples to split with less acrimony, and ending what justice secretary David Gauke described as the [...]
Commonwealth: Blockchain regulation multiplier? April 9, 2019 I first met Loretta Joseph at the CogX conference at Tobacco Dock in London’s Wapping last June. I recently caught up with her via a WhatsApp call when she was in Istanbul en route from Mauritius to Serbia. As a former banker, with 25 years of experience, she has advised international banks, hedge- and pension-funds [...]
British Airways settles long-running pensions battle with trustees April 9, 2019 British Airways has settled a long-running battle with the trustees of one of its staff pension schemes in a case that was set to go to the Supreme Court. The trustees of the nearly 25,000 member Airways Pension Scheme said today they had agreed to an out-of-court settlement to the dispute, subject to the approval of the [...]
Death of the High Street? Why we’re still backing UK retail April 9, 2019 | City Talk Following some dire headlines you might rightly wonder why the share prices of UK retailers have recorded double-digit gains this year (see graphic, below). Surely the relentlessly downbeat mood music from the mainstream media (and pessimism among analysts) is confirmation that the UK consumer is in full retreat, and consumer-exposed sectors are in deep trouble? [...]