B&Q owner Kingfisher’s profits slump nearly 40 per cent although Covid backlog may yet boost DIY chain’s bottom line March 21, 2023 B&Q owner Kingfisher reported a sales slowdown as the DIY giant felt the hit from Brits scaling back on home improvements. For the year ending 31 January 2023 Kingfisher, which also owns brands such as Screwfix, posted pre-tax profits of £611m, down 39.3 per cent from £1.7bn in the same period last year. As shoppers [...]
Why pension funds might not be to blame for the UK’s capital market decline March 21, 2023 Pension funds have taken on an interesting new role in the City psyche over the past year. Once just guardians of the country’s retirement cash, they have morphed into punch bags on which to unleash frustration at the UK’s capital market decline. A sort of anti-growth coalition unwilling to back home-reared equities and believe in [...]
Rail strikes: Pubs and bars breathe sigh of relief – but walkouts are still planned March 21, 2023 London’s hospitality sector has welcomed RMT trade members’ vote to accept a pay offer from Network Rail, after the strikes and disruptions cost restaurant and pub business up to £3bn. Kate Nicholls, chief executive at UKHospitality, described the decision as “encouraging news” for hospitality businesses. She said: “There’s plenty still to be done, of course, [...]
Summertime sadness: 2022 heatwave leaves insurers with £219bn subsidence bill March 21, 2023 Insurers are set to pay out £219m to Brits whose houses sunk into the ground due to the heatwave last year, new figures from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) show. The summer heatwave, which saw temperatures in the Lincolnshire town on Coningsby hit record highs of 40.3 degrees Celsius, led to a surge in [...]
Credit Suisse and Silicon Valley Bank chaos are symptoms of fragile banking system March 21, 2023 City folk around in 2007 must have been getting very twitchy over the last week. Some of the market moves were reminiscent of the early stages of the financial crisis once people clocked on to just how bad banks had messed up. Credit Suisse tumbled more than 30 per cent at one point. Its peers [...]
Panic, just a little bit of panic, was enough to drive Credit Suisse off a cliff March 21, 2023 After the collapse of SVB, investors and the bank's customers were on high alert for signs of shakiness and Credit Suisse was an obvious target as fears mounted over a wider, 2008-style banking crisis, writes Comment & Features Editor Sascha O’Sullivan
Credit Suisse failed time and time again to learn the importance of risk management March 21, 2023 The Credit Suisse saga should provide a warning for the whole sector: to be a good bank, you need patience and prudence more than sheer ambition and appetite for risk, writes Eliot Wilson
In the absence of fresh cash, it will be trade which drives further growth in the UK March 21, 2023 Jeremy Hunt's Budget almost ignored trade. But when cash is short, trade is the ultimate lever to unleash growth in our economy: that's why we must support companies to trade more, writes Chris Southworth
“Damning”: Seven key findings from the Casey Review of the Met Police March 21, 2023 The Met Police has been slammed as “institutionally racist, homophobic and misogynist” in a report triggered by the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer. Louise Casey said the Met Police needed a “complete overhaul” to restore public trust and confidence. Here are the ten things you need to know: The Met is [...]
Met Police is ‘institutionally’ racist, misogynistic and homophobic, new review concludes March 21, 2023 The Metropolitan Police is “institutionally” racist, misogynistic and homophobic, while officers like killer Wayne Couzens and rapist David Carrick could still be in uniform, a damning review has found.
