Wetherspoons profits take a hit as wage increases kick in March 15, 2019 Wetherspoons has posted a sharp drop in pre-tax profits in its half-year report as increased labour costs took their toll. Read more: Wetherspoons profits slow amid surge in labour costs The figures Revenues increased 7.1 per cent to £889.6m for the 26 weeks to 27 January. Like-for-like sales were up 6.3 per cent over the [...]
Just Group leads FTSE fallers after revealing £400m fundraising plans March 14, 2019 Retirement services firm Just Group has seen shares fall 11 per cent today after revealing plans to raise almost £400m to comply with new capital requirement rules as it unveiled a heavy loss before tax in 2018. The firm said it plans a debt offering of £300m and will raise a further £80m from an equity [...]
UK bank shares: A pre-Brexit view March 12, 2019 | City Talk Some UK bank shares have made massive profits for shareholders, but how should you play the sector now? It’s been a few weeks since the last of the big UK-listed banks published results for 2018, and share price performance since has been varied. Brexit, of course, has played its part and, with some lenders up [...]
Deal or no deal, let’s make the UK the most attractive place for business March 12, 2019 What happens if there’s no Brexit deal? Over the past year, we’ve had various answers to this question – most ranging from the alarming to the apocalyptic. But while we’ve heard an awful lot about the problems, we haven’t heard much about solutions. That’s why our think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies, has just [...]
Bank of England takes action over Visa card payment outage March 8, 2019 The Bank of England (BoE) has taken action against Visa following an outage last year that caused more than 2m card transactions to fail. The BoE has announced supervisory action to ensure that Visa Europe enforces the recommendations made following an independent review by EY in the wake of the incident. Read more: TSB online [...]
Brexit-backing Tories are running out of road March 6, 2019 Next week, MPs will be asked to vote (again) on the government's proposed Brexit deal. While Theresa May's team attempts to woo Labour MPs with offers of cash for poor areas and commitments on workers' rights, the attorney general and Brexit secretary have been in Brussels, frantically trying to win concessions on the thorny Irish [...]
UK business bank borrowing surges in January March 1, 2019 UK businesses significantly increased their borrowing from banks in January driven by a surge of merger and acquisition activity, figures show. Borrowing by UK businesses increased by £9.2bn in January, with £5.3bn lent by banks, according to the Bank of England's monthly borrowing statistics. Read more: Brexit uncertainty costs UK £800m a week The increase in [...]
Editor’s Notes: Let’s hear it from the New Democrats and Reagan Republicans March 1, 2019 Back in 2015, I was convinced the UK was heading for another hung parliament. The following year I expected a comfortable Remain victory in the EU referendum. A few months later, turning to the US, I was certain that Hillary Clinton would trounce Donald Trump at the ballot box. Then, just to compound things, I [...]
MPs’ pay to rise to almost £80,000 a year thanks to inflation-busting increase February 28, 2019 MPs’ basic salary will rise to £79,468 from 1 April thanks to an inflation-busting 2.7 per cent pay rise, it has been announced. Read more: Cancelling Commons' recess cost £400,000… yet there was no Brexit vote The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority – which sets the level of MPs' pay – said the move was inline with [...]
UK growth ‘guaranteed’ to fall in no-deal Brexit, Mark Carney warns MPs February 26, 2019 UK growth is “guaranteed” to fall in the event of a no-deal Brexit, the Bank of England’s governor Mark Carney has told MPs. The Bank slashed its UK growth forecast for 2019 to 1.2 per cent earlier this month – down from the 1.7 per cent forecast in November – even on the assumption of [...]