Extinction Rebellion protests cost over £50m August 21, 2021 The cost of policing Extinction Rebellion protests are over £50m, and is expected to rise with more demonstrations planned over the next few weeks, according to reports. The Metropolitan Police’s gold commander for the demonstrations, Rachel Williams, said the figure included the response to two protests in 2019 and one in September last year, when [...]
Mastercard faces £10bn class-action lawsuit in UK August 19, 2021 A UK court has approved the UK’s biggest class action lawsuit of over £10bn against global payments processor Mastercard on behalf of 46m consumers, according to reports. The previously rejected lawsuit was formally certified on Wednesday to go to trial by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in London. It will be the first mass claim [...]
John Lewis launches investment products as it looks beyond retail for revenue August 19, 2021 John Lewis has today launched investment products for the first time ever, as the retailer ramps up its plans to find revenue streams in other sectors. Entering the investments market is, the company said in a statement, part of its longer term ambition for 40 per cent of the company’s profits to come from outside [...]
Podcast: The plastic problem facing investors August 11, 2021 | City Talk Read the full transcript Part one: The weight of plastic worth all the fish in the sea Ashleigh Cowie (AC): In doing research for this podcast I came across this astonishing fact. Are you ready for it? David Brett (DB): Go on then. Hit me with it. AC: Right now, there are more than 5 trillion pieces of [...]
Strategic asset allocation or how I learned to stop worrying and love dispersion August 10, 2021 | City Talk For decades, strategic asset allocation has been considered the driving force behind investment portfolio returns. But the old adage that allocation determines 90 per cent of performance is rapidly becoming outdated. During 2020 and 2021, we have seen how the world of investing is shifting from one in which declining interest rates drive beta performance [...]
Going public: This new report highlights six key trends driving the IPO surge August 10, 2021 | Sponsored While we’ve all been shut indoors for a year and a half, quite the opposite has been happening with the public markets. Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) grew 51 percent in 2020, and the trend is continuing into 2021, as worldwide exchanges continue to flash the new ticker symbols of recently minted publicly traded companies. Intralinks’ [...]
Mitigating litigation risk: The impact of corporate social performance factors August 3, 2021 | City Talk Much has been written on the merits of ESG investing strategies and their ability to deliver comparable, if not superior, performance to traditional benchmarks. A majority of institutional investors are motivated to employ ESG investing strategies because they believe ESG will improve risk adjusted returns1, yet the circumstances in which ESG leads to better outcomes [...]
Growing investor appetite drives fund managers to alternative strategies July 29, 2021 | Sponsored Yet raising, operating and reporting on a fund for the first time brings a host of tactical and operational challenges. Read our whitepaper, 5 Best Practices To Help Emerging Fund Managers Gain a Competitive Advantage to get guidance for: Reducing friction in your fundraising process Exploring outsourced fund administrations Investing in a world-class investor portal Adopting a [...]
Investment managers increasingly seek sophisticated portals due to transparency and analytics needs July 29, 2021 | Sponsored Here’s the download on why you should move to a next-generation investor portal—and how to select a solution. As the investor community continues to require more transparency and access to up to date, in-depth reporting, fund managers need a communications portal that can keep pace. What’s more, choosing a platform that provides a positive experience [...]
Exclusive: Two City lawyers on a mission to make their fintech the ‘Amazon of Islamic finance’ July 19, 2021 Islamic Finance Guru (IFG), a UK-based Islamic finance platform, has closed an investment round led by Outward venture capital, as the market for Islamic fintech grows. The UK-based startup has raised £3m from Outward VC and B&Y Venture Partners. The news come just a week after the Boubyan Bank Group announced that the world’s first [...]