Housebuilder Countryside to IPO on the London Stock Exchange January 14, 2016 Housebuilder Countryside has made a punchy start to 2016, announcing plans to float on the London Stock Exchange – just as global markets teeter on the brink… In a statement this morning, the company said it wants to raise £114m to pay down debt and accelerate growth of existing sites. Investors including Oaktree Capital will use the opportunity to [...]
Army of consultants marches towards the City as regulation pushes compliance and risk wages up January 14, 2016 Waves of increasingly tough legislation from financial regulators will push City firms to shell out on an army of compliance consultants in 2016, figures seen by City A.M. have suggested. The Salary Survey, by City recruiter Robert Walters, suggested lenders and other institutions are so desperate to hire for senior roles in compliance, they are willing [...]
Twitter share price falls to all-time low again – this time tumbling under $19 January 13, 2016 Twitter shares fell to earth with all the speed and elegance of a sparrow hitting a window, tumbling under $19 per share for the first time to fresh all-time lows. Stock plummeted to an intraday low of $18.57 shedding more than five per cent and taking it to the lowest it has ever traded at. The social network has been heading [...]
Family debt jumped 42 per cent to more than £13,500 in six months January 13, 2016 With growth in the economy looking shaky, it seems the amount people are borrowing has increased: new figures showed family household debt rose a whopping 42 per cent to £13,520 in the final six months of last year. The figure, which excludes mortgages, is up from £9,520 in summer 2015, and £9,050 last winter. It's also [...]
It’s official: Your boss can snoop on your private emails and messages, European Court of Human Rights rules January 13, 2016 Snooping or monitoring: call it what you will, but after a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights, your boss is allowed to do it. The ruling dismissed a case in which a Romanian employee's Yahoo Messenger conversations were monitored by his boss. Bogdan Mihai Bărbulescu was a sales engineer at a company in Bucharest when [...]
Why the mid-life crisis is a myth: Life (and happiness) really does begin at 40, it turns out January 13, 2016 Thinking of buying a sports car? Stop: mid-life crisis is no longer an excuse, after a new study found people's happiness tends to rise as they progress through life – suggesting the mid-life crisis is actually a myth. The 25-year study, by the University of Alberta, found happiness tends to keep rising into people's 40s [...]
Barratt share price jumps as housebuilder posts “excellent” first half January 13, 2016 Another day, another housebuilder smugly proving the property sector is where it's at these days. But one analyst was still cautious… The figures The company said it completed 7,626 homes in the six months to the end of December, 9.4 per cent more than last year. The company was receiving 0.66 net private reservations per active site each week – up from [...]
Internet goes crazy after Arizona University scientist Lawerence Krauss tweets his team may have discovered gravitational waves January 12, 2016 The scientific community is brimming with excitement after it emerged gravitational waves may have finally been discovered. Lawrence Krauss, a prominent cosmologist from Arizona University, tweeted yesterday saying rumours had been confirmed by independent sources. My earlier rumor about LIGO has been confirmed by independent sources. Stay tuned! Gravitational waves may have been discovered!! Exciting. — [...]
Greggs’ share price plummets – despite coming over all hipster with the introduction of the flat white January 12, 2016 Shares in FTSE 250-listed Greggs plummeted this morning – even though it announced plans to start selling flat whites, the Antipodean coffee crazy taking the globe by storm. Some people are never satisfied. The figures In a trading update this morning, Greggs said sales rose 5.2 per cent in 2015, with like-for-like sales at its company-managed stores rising 4.7 per cent. [...]
How science wants to turn you into a cyborg: From implants in your ears to uploading your nervous system to the internet, here’s how to biohack your way to a new body January 12, 2016 Forget wearable technology: that’s old news. One of the latest trends is biohacking, where external devices are controlled by electrical signals within the body. Some are directly implanted, making the relationship between human and computer closer than ever before. Biohacking is largely driven by so-called grinders or cyborgs, a community of people curious enough to use themselves [...]
