Redundancy payouts decline as pressure to cut costs eases July 19, 2015 Redundancy payments have fallen to their lowest level since the recession, according to new figures published today. Redundancy payouts to workers totalled £3.5bn in the 12 months ending April 2015, down 10 per cent on the year before, commercial law firm EMW said. The number of payments has also dropped 10 per cent from 284,000 [...]
Upbeat Brits keen to splash holiday cash July 19, 2015 Confident Brits are preparing to splash out more while on holiday this year, according to survey figures published yesterday. Of over 2,000 holidaymakers surveyed by Sainsbury’s Travel Money, 33 per cent said they were planning to spend more abroad this summer, compared to 12 per cent who said they would spend less. Travel agents had [...]
Smaller hedge funds do better during periods of financial crisis July 19, 2015 Hedge funds managing smaller pools of cash outpace their larger peers during times of financial crisis, an academic study shows. The report by Cass Business School reveals that small hedge funds left big hedge funds for dust in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. They were also found to have outperformed large funds between [...]
Ikea promises to adopt the living wage for its 9,000 UK employees July 19, 2015 Home furnishing giant Ikea yesterday pledged to adopt the living wage from 1 April next year – a move that will affect more than half its 9,000 UK staff. Describing the pay increase as “part of a holistic transformation of basic co-worker conditions”, Ikea said UK employees will receive a minimum of £7.85 per hour [...]
Retail veteran Browett joining Octopus board as non-executive July 19, 2015 Retail guru John Browett has been appointed to the board of fund manager Octopus Investments as non-executive director. Browett, best known for heading Dixons Retail for five years between 2007 and 2012, is currently the boss of homewares store Dunelm. He also had stints as chief executive of Monsoon Accessorize, boss of Tesco’s online arm [...]
Eurozone investor sentiment collapses as investors flock to “safe havens” of gold and UK government bonds July 19, 2015 Eurozone shares have had the largest annual decline in sentiment on record, dropping 19 percentage points in just a month. New figures from Lloyds show investors’ sentiment for Eurozone shares have crashed to -48 per cent, down 30 percentage points over the past year. Ashish Misra, head of portfolio specialists at Lloyds, said the drop [...]
Capita: UK dividend payments hit highest point since 2008 as Lloyds and HSBC return to financial health July 19, 2015 Dividends paid out by UK companies have soared to their highest level since 2008, buoyed by banks hiking their payouts and a lower pound. A total of £29.2bn was paid out during the second quarter, shows data collected by Capita Asset Services, the highest second quarter on record. “To say income investors had a bumper [...]
Royal Dutch Shell expects to save “billions” through BG Group deal July 19, 2015 Royal Dutch Shell has told investors that the massive £55bn takeover of BG Group will produce “billions” in savings. Projected savings from cost reductions verifiable under takeover rules, such as merging headquarters, come to about £1bn, but the company has said that savings are actually likely to be a “multiple” of this, because of “value [...]
Greek crisis: Government orders banks to re-open Monday as Alexis Tsipras reshuffles cabinet July 18, 2015 The Greek government has ordered the cash-strapped country's banks to re-open on Monday ahead of talks regarding a third bailout deal. It will also mean the Greek people can withdraw a maximum of €420 (£291) a week, in place of the stricter limit of €60 a day currently in place. Greece was forced to close [...]
Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis says that Greek reforms are going to fail July 18, 2015 Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has said that the economic reforms Greece has signed up to are "going to fail" ahead of talks on a third bailout for the cash-strapped country. He told the BBC that the medicine administered to the Greek economy by its so-called "troika" of creditors – the European Union, the European Central [...]