City Moves for 26 September 2016 | Who’s switching jobs September 26, 2016 RSM RSM has appointed Bart Somerville as a corporate finance director focusing on business and asset valuations based in the London office. Bart joins RSM from BDO where he was a director in the valuation team. Prior to that Bart worked at Deloitte UK for five years and PwC in Toronto for seven years. He’s provided [...]
The founders of Syft explain how they’re saving clients 55 per cent – and why there’s an upper limit to Lionel Richie September 26, 2016 Two Christmases ago, Jack Beaman experienced something of an intervention. “I’d been out of work for six months, and a group of friends sat me down and asked me what I was actually going to do with my life.” Fortunately, he’d spent that time cooking up a business idea. “As a student, like a lot [...]
Netflix, Spotify and Instagram chase Apple’s coolest brand title September 26, 2016 Apple's troubled year has failed to topple it from the top spot among the world's coolest brands, retaining its reputation as a must-have for the fifth year in a row. A half decade holding the title in the CoolBrands Index which is based on authenticity, desirability, innovation and originality comes as its tries to prove it can [...]
Meet the Pikes: The brothers who gave up corporate jobs and first-home deposits to launch SuperCarers September 26, 2016 For brothers Adam and Daniel Pike, business is about personal passion as well as profit. Two years ago, they launched SuperCarers, an online solution to placing carers for the elderly in the home. “Our grandma needed care. The quality wasn’t good enough and it was too expensive. So our mum ended up being the primary [...]
Is China’s toxic debt pile the greatest threat the global economy faces? September 26, 2016 Mike Jakeman, global analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, says Yes. The Chinese government has already performed one economic miracle – in the 30 years from 1980, it pulled almost 700m people out of extreme poverty. Now it requires another – to wean its fattened economy off a diet of public investment and onto helpings of household [...]
Five points the City needs government to heed during Brexit negotiations September 26, 2016 To a huddle of European journalists, Jens Weidmann, president of the Bundesbank, claimed that Frankfurt could be attractive and would welcome newcomers. This is of course just the latest marketing attempt by our competing continental financial centres wanting take some of the City’s business. But how does the City respond? We are of course used to [...]
Syria must burn itself out: It is time for the West to do nothing September 26, 2016 (The best policy is) to float lazily downstream, occasionally putting out a diplomatic boathook to avoid collisions. Lord Salisbury, 1877 In one of the least shocking policy outcomes of the year, the US-Russian brokered ceasefire in Syria did not last the week. Speaking as a longstanding sceptic of intervention there, being right analytically gives me [...]
Moderate Labour is dead: A new party is the only way to fill the vacuum in British politics September 26, 2016 So he won. And, for second time in little over a year, he won pretty convincingly. Members of the Labour Party have made their choice, and they have chosen to be a purist left-wing sect pursuing their own narrow interests rather than a serious party of government. Over the coming weeks, thousands of people will [...]
Banks warned over fintech payment firms September 26, 2016 The world's biggest banks risk losing control of digital payments to small fintech startups and global tech giants, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has warned. Banks have been told they have to “maximize security, minimise complexity, and add value beyond pure payments” if they want to survive in transactional banking. The BCG has slammed banks’ poor [...]
You’ll be hearing from my lawyer: Blue chip companies placing more and more money to one side to fight costly litigation, with FTSE 100 legal provisions up by a fifth September 26, 2016 Firms in the FTSE 100 put aside £31.3bn between them last year in a bid to cover potential legal bills stemming from increasingly costly litigation, a study out today has found. Legal provisions, which refer to money set aside to cover expenses such as legal costs, fines and compensation, among those in the blue chip index have [...]