Will Imperial Brands light up another shareholder spring? Let’s hope not January 27, 2017 The reaction to tobacco giant Imperial Brands’ decision to jettison a new incentive package for chief executive Alison Cooper has been tediously predictable. Focusing on the level of her pay – which will now not rise to a potential £8.5m this year – it is being portrayed as a turning point, spurred on by Theresa May’s campaign [...]
No, 2016 has not been the worst year ever December 16, 2016 If you're looking for some Christmas cheer, avoid the latest meme sweeping the internet, for 2016 was apparently the worst year ever. Perhaps the singer James Blunt best encapsulated the gloomy mood on Twitter: “If you thought 2016 was bad – I’m releasing an album in 2017.” Blunt aside, there’s much wrong with this pessimism. Most [...]
Faith alone won’t keep the euro alive indefinitely December 2, 2016 The euro is an astonishing achievement. Not, obviously, because it’s been a tremendous economic success: unable to devalue, the economies of much of southern Europe are being gutted, facing gravity-defying rates of unemployment (20 percentage points higher in Greece than in Germany), painful efforts to cut wages to restore competitiveness, and essentially unsolvable debt crises. The [...]
Exporting to the Commonwealth: What is the opportunity for small businesses in Britain? December 1, 2016 It's hard to avoid using enormous numbers when discussing trade. And the numbers don’t come much bigger than for the Commonwealth. A diverse grouping of 52 states, spanning Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Pacific, the Commonwealth is home to some 2.3bn people and has a GDP projected to reach $14 trillion by the end [...]
London will reinvent itself again post-Brexit if it remains flexible and open to the world November 29, 2016 "We don't plan London very much. Nobody planned to have the euro-dollar market, for example. It rose because clever people were very quick at responding to market signals.” Speaking at a debate at the Museum of London on the future of the capital, hosted by Eversheds, The Independent’s Hamish McRae set out the optimistic case for the [...]
Overrated Angela Merkel is no saviour for a free world fearing Trump November 18, 2016 Before hysterical Glastonbury-style crowds in Berlin in 2008, Barack Obama first burnished his international reputation as a “rock-star”. Then just a presidential candidate, his vision of cooperation between Russia and the West, of Middle East peace, and of “a global commitment to progress” was excitedly greeted as the start of a new chapter in US [...]
The referendum is over: Let’s act like it is November 4, 2016 Brexit is about to be betrayed. Wealthy financiers have coopted unelected judges into a war on democracy, seeking to undermine the will of the people by fair means or foul. Yesterday’s High Court ruling that Parliament must decide on the triggering of Article 50 is an insult to the 17.4m who voted for Brexit, and [...]
London must shake off its complacency over housing and infrastructure if it’s to thrive post-Brexit October 31, 2016 Rarely has a ranking of the world’s greatest cities been released in the past few years without London at its top, or very near it. PwC recently named the capital the world’s best city for opportunity, praising its economic clout, its attractiveness to foreign direct investment, its highly skilled workforce, and its status as a [...]
Know your benefit crystallisation event from your pension input period with our A to Z of pensions jargon October 28, 2016 National Pensions Awareness day came and went last month, with no apparent impact on people’s understanding of one of the best ways of saving for retirement. The Bank of England’s media-savvy chief economist Andy Haldane said in May that even he was unable to understand pensions because the system is so complicated. This situation is [...]
Don’t rely on downsizing to make up for your insufficient pension October 27, 2016 After years of runaway house prices, few will be surprised that a sizeable proportion of the UK’s net wealth is tied up in property. The latest ONS statistics show that dwellings make up a massive 62 per cent, or £5.5 trillion, of the country’s £8.8 trillion total. So it is also unsurprising that many see [...]