Apprenticeship levy: Treasury slashes businesses’ contributions in half October 29, 2018 Chancellor Philip Hammond has unveiled plans for a £695m initiative to help small firms hire apprentices in his Budget this afternoon. The Treasury is cutting the small businesses co-investment level for apprenticeships from 10 per cent to five per cent. Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, said: “While the Chancellor’s recent announcement to [...]
Listed challenger law firm Gordon Dadds swallows 150-year-old City firm Ince & Co October 29, 2018 Gordon Dadds is set to become the largest listed law firm in England after today agreeing a deal to buy venerable City shipping firm Ince & Co for £34m. City A.M. revealed the firms were in talks last month following which shares in Gordon Dadds were suspend. Gordon Dadds, which advised The Telegraph in the Philip Green [...]
A virtual reality education company is listing on Aim today for £19.3m October 29, 2018 Virtual reality may soon hit the classroom, as a company called VR Education (VRE) listed on London's junior market today for a market value of £19.3m. VRE, which has raised £6m through the initial public offering (IPO), focuses on using virtual reality to improve digital learning and corporate training. The money raised in the float [...]
Rio Tinto says $1.3bn sale of stake in Guinea iron mine has lapsed October 29, 2018 A deal for Rio Tinto to sell its stake in a Guinea iron ore project for $1.3bn (£1bn) has fallen through. The global miner had signed a non-binding agreement for China's Chinalco to buy its 45.05 per cent stake in the Simandou project in October 2016. On Monday it said the agreement had lapsed and it [...]
Consumer credit growth stutters to three-year low as UK house purchases fall back October 29, 2018 Consumer borrowing grew at its lowest rate for three years last month after car sales dropped 20 per cent, the Bank of England revealed today. The annual growth rate of consumer borrowing hit 7.7 per cent last month, the lowest it's been since June 2015, and far below the 10.09 per cent growth rate in [...]
DEBATE: Should Hammond keep the Tory promise and increase the higher-rate tax threshold to £50,000? October 29, 2018 Should Philip Hammond keep the Tory promise and increase the higher-rate tax threshold to £50,000? Ben Ramanauskas, researcher at the Taxpayers’ Alliance, says YES. People earning £45,000 (the current threshold) can no longer be considered wealthy, particularly considering the high cost of living in our major cities. There is a housing crisis in the UK, [...]
Happy birthday, bitcoin: Onwards to a brave new crypto-fulled world October 29, 2018 A decde ago this Wednesday, just weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the start of the financial crisis, an anonymous figure published the famous essay – “Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system”. Bitcoin’s mysterious creator, known under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, has to this day never been unmasked, but his invention has since [...]
Today’s Budget is a chance to reinvigorate domestic policy October 29, 2018 It has been a year of momentous change for department titles. The Department for Health has added Social Care to its name, while the Department for Communities and Local Government has recently become a Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. So far, those changes have not been accompanied by a new and much-needed domestic [...]
What to expect from chancellor Philip Hammond’s Budget October 28, 2018 Ahead of tomorrow's Autumn Budget City A.M. looks at the areas that chancellor Philip Hammond is likely to focus on in his last chance to tweak the UK’s fiscal regime before the Brexit deadline in March Roads Hammond is expected to announce almost £30bn for new road projects and repairs which will be partially funded [...]
The City helps fuel economic growth right across the country, so be wary of those who want to clip its wings October 28, 2018 One of the most pernicious elements of Labour's current economic platform is the idea that the City is entirely distinct from (and damaging to) the so-called real economy. Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell's stump speeches routinely contain attacks on predatory bankers, fat-cats and financial speculators. The labour leader also seems to have a personal vendetta against [...]