City veteran Michael Spencer invests millions into a biometric fintech startup June 29, 2018 Founder of NEX Group and serial entrepreneur Michael Spencer has led a $16.5m series B fundraising round into a biometric fintech startup called Veridium. A leader in user authentication through biometric technology like fingerprint and face scanning, Veridium's round was accompanied by additional investment from Citrix Systems and financial services investor Michael Powell. "In today’s [...]
The GKN break-up is a test for Melrose, don’t bank on a tax cut and Marc Bolland is not just any NED June 29, 2018 Vultures. Asset-strippers. Corporate predators. The board of Melrose has had these perjorative labels and more thrown at it in the months since its initial bid approach for GKN. This week’s approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States of the £8bn takeover removed the final obstacle to a deal that elicited greater [...]
Angela Merkel faces a make-or-break moment of her own making June 29, 2018 Angela Merkel had a message for her parliamentary colleagues on Thursday: the future of the EU rests on finding a solution to the migration issue. The German Chancellor is right that today’s summit is a make-or-break moment for the EU. What she neglected to mention, however, is that the migration crisis is the direct result [...]
Sluggish house price growth in London while Manchester and Edinburgh soar June 29, 2018 London house price growth has fallen to a nine-year low, according to new figures out today. Growth in the capital’s flagging property market fell to a year-on-year low of 0.4 per cent in May, while Edinburgh and Manchester house prices soared to 7.1 per cent and 7.0 per cent respectively. The latest data from property [...]
Theresa May is ready for Brexit negotiations to ‘accelerate and intensify’ but Michel Barnier says big divergences remain June 29, 2018 Theresa May has told European Union leaders the UK is ready for Brexit talks to pick up, with the publication of a much-anticipated Brexit white paper to be published shortly. But EU chief negotiatior Michel Barnier said today that while progress had been made – big differences remained. He added that he hoped a British [...]
Crossrail ditches the purple for these yellow Elizabeth Line trains June 29, 2018 You may have seen the rather striking new addition to the Tube map as previewed by Transport for London (TfL) in December to show the addition of the purple Elizabeth Line ahead of its December launch. And that royal purple colour has already been featured across the brand new Elizabeth Line trains revealed back in [...]
Tesco Go: The UK supermarket chain is trialling an Amazon-style version of checkout-free shopping June 29, 2018 Tesco has said it is testing a way of paying for your shopping in-store without going through a checkout, using a smartphone app to scan items and pay online. The app is being tested in a Tesco Express near its headquarters in Welwyn Garden City, which is also one of the retail chain's cashless stores. [...]
Editor’s Notes: The City is right to warn the EU against its own Brexit complacency, UBS’s forecasting woes and Xavier Rolet’s agricultural insight June 29, 2018 The heat is rising in the City, and not just because of the recent heatwave. On Wednesday, the normally mild-mannered chief of TheCityUK, the finance industry’s main lobby group, unleashed his frustration at EU regulators over their failure to meet the UK halfway on securing a legal basis for the continuation of cross-border contracts post-Brexit. [...]
Poundland owner Steinhoff secures deal with creditors to pave way for restructuring plans June 29, 2018 The South African retailer that owns Poundland said today that it had got the thumbs up from creditors to move ahead with debt restructuring plans. Steinhoff, which owns brands such as Benson for Beds and Harveys in the UK, said in an update today that it had agreed "key commercial terms" on its restructuring plans, [...]