Wizz Air passenger traffic rockets amid Omicron concerns December 2, 2021 Passenger traffic on low-cost carrier Wizz Air has continued to grow in November, amid concerns for the new Covid variant, Omicron. The airline announced this morning that last month it carried more than 2 million passengers, a 375.7 per cent increase compared with the same time last year. The company’s load factor also increased by [...]
AJ Bell ends year overseeing £72.8bn in assets amid retail investor boom December 2, 2021 AJ Bell has enjoyed soaring profits and inflows for the year as non-professional investors turned to the platform in record numbers.
Lord Rothermere raises final offer in Daily Mail privatisation push December 2, 2021 Lord Rothermere has upped his offer to shareholders as he seeks to privatise the Daily Mail Group Trust (DMGT).
British icon Selfridges becomes Thai: Weston family agrees £4bn sale December 2, 2021 Selfridges’ owner the Weston family has agreed to sell the iconic high-end department store chain to Thai private conglomerate Central Group for £4bn. The Canadian billionaires have reached an agreement with Central Group in the last few days, hoping to close the deal by the end of the month, the Times reported. Founded by American [...]
Klarna float inevitable says boss – but don’t worry about the financials December 2, 2021 Klarna’s boss confirmed yesterday that the buy now pay later giant will eventually head for public markets – but that he hopes investors don’t pay too much attention to financial updates. Boss Sebastian Siemiatkowski said that he wanted the firm to have “a strong enough reputation… as you have been able to see with (Tesla [...]
Mark Kleinman: Light finally shines on Schroders’ M&G ambitions December 2, 2021 Sky News’ Mark Kleinman is the man the City reads – and in his fortnightly column for City A.M., he shares his insight and analysis. Schroders is solved The mystery is finally solved. For months, fund management executives have puzzled over two aspects of Schroders’ aborted ambitions to take over M&G Investments and create a [...]
Abrdn closes in on finalising £1.5bn Interactive Investor takeover December 2, 2021 Abrdn could today announce the £1.5bn takeover of DIY investment platform Interactive Investor (II). The deal, after weeks of exclusive negotiations, was in its final stages yesterday, reported Sky News’ Mark Kleinman, who also revealed last month that the two firms had begun talks. The acquisition of II – which, with 400,000 personal investing clients, [...]
Producer of The Irishman backs NFT’s first step into Hollywood December 1, 2021 Production company NFT Studios announced “the first-ever Hollywood feature film to be fully funded” by “non-fungible tokens”, with Niels Juul, the exec producer behind Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, as the founder. The production company is the first in its kind to fund a series of movies entirely through NFTs, which are ways of owning the [...]
Bullish Omicron assessments boost global markets December 1, 2021 A string of bullish assessments from global health leaders downplaying the severity of the Omicron variant boosted global markets yesterday. Investors shook off concerns over the Covid-19 variant derailing the world’s fight against the pandemic and poured back into stocks. London’s premier FTSE 100 index shot up 1.55 per cent to close at 7,168.68 points [...]
US Fed chief Powell insists inflation will pull back despite casting doubt over central bank’s forecasts December 1, 2021 The chief of the US Federal Reserve today insisted price rises in America should pull back from a three-decade high in the middle of next year despite casting doubt over the central bank’s own inflation forecasts. Jerome Powell said the Fed expects inflation to fall “significantly” in the second half of next year, while in [...]