Davos: Liam Fox agrees future trade deal with Israel as UK seeks to maintain existing EU agreements after Brexit January 23, 2019 The UK has agreed its first post-Brexit free trade deal in principle, Liam Fox said at Davos today. The international trade secretary said Britain and Israel have shaken hands on a future deal ahead of the UK’s planned departure from the bloc. Read more: Fox warns Brexit delay would be worse than no deal “As [...]
Gold miner Petropavlovsk looks to gilded year after processing plant opens ahead of schedule January 23, 2019 Anglo-Russian miner Petropavlovsk struck gold today as shares rocketed on the news it expects production to grow by up to 77,000 ounces this year after a new plant opened ahead of schedule. The company said it is targeting gold output of around 450,000 to 500,000 ounces in 2019, up from 422,300 last year. Read more: Gold [...]
RPC Group’s £3.3bn private equity takeover sparks disquiet among top shareholders January 23, 2019 Private equity firm Apollo Global Management’s £3.3bn buyout of packaging manufacturer RPC Group has sparked a row among investors, who feel they are getting a raw deal. Each RPC shareholder will get 782p cash for every share they own, 15.6 per cent up on the 683.6p closing price on 7 September, the last day before [...]
Pound rises to 10-week high as fears of a no-deal Brexit recede January 23, 2019 Sterling rose to above $1.30 today reaching a 10-week high as fears of a no-deal Brexit eased. The pound also rose against the Euro to its highest level in a month, rising to near €1.15. Sterling’s rise was helped by hopes that the Labour Party would move to prevent a no-deal Brexit. Labour MP Yvette [...]
Private equity group Apollo seals £3.3bn deal for packaging giant RPC January 23, 2019 Private equity firm Apollo Global Management has agreed to buy packaging manufacturing giant RPC Group for £3.3bn. Each RPC shareholder will receive 782p cash for every share they own, 7.6 per cent up on the company’s closing price of 734p on Tuesday. The deal comes hours after Apollo pulled out of buying Arconic, the firm [...]
No matter how we measure inflation, politics will forever trump economics January 23, 2019 THE ECONOMIC Affairs Committee of the House of Lords has got its bovver boots on. Last week, the government was given a sound kicking. The issue was the seemingly esoteric one of how to measure inflation. Inflation tells us how much the prices of goods and services are going up. The question is: what do [...]
Derailed train crashes into BHP punching $600m hole in miner’s accounts January 22, 2019 Anglo-Australian miner BHP dropped today as it warned that disruptions in its copper and iron ore mines would take a $600m (£463) chunk out of the company’s books. Investors were also left uncertain when the groups said that iron ore production had fallen nine per cent in the second quarter. An outage in the acid [...]
FTSE risers and fallers: FTSE 100 falls one per cent as global growth concerns hit stock markets January 22, 2019 Stock markets across the world have fallen today on heightened fears of a global growth slowdown. Warnings by the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations that the US-China trade war could accelerate the slowdown yesterday weighed heavily on equities as the FTSE 100 fell more than one per cent. The mining sector, reliant on [...]
Government borrowing higher than expected in December but annual borrowing falls to 16-year low January 22, 2019 Government borrowing came in higher than expected in December as the UK received less money back from the EU. Public sector net borrowing climbed to £3bn in December, £300m higher than the same month in 2017 and more than the £1.9bn City economists had expected. The Office for National Statistics said this was partly due [...]
Employment rate hits record high as wages reach new post-financial crisis peak January 22, 2019 Employment rose to a record high in the three months to November as wage growth hit a 10-year peak, according to official data released today. The number of people in paid work rose by 141,000 people to 32.53m, the Office for National Statistics said, giving a record employment rate of 75.8 per cent. Sterling surged [...]