The Royal Mint’s £100 coins were so popular, it’s had to issue a new edition August 7, 2015 You could say it's a license to print money: the Royal Mint has issued a second edition of its massive £100 coins, after the first iteration sold out. Only 50,000 of the new coins, made from two ounces of 999 fine silver, will be made. And while the last version showed Big Ben, this time [...]
Deal bonanza as global mergers and acquisitions hit post-downturn high August 7, 2015 For deal junkies, it's hardly surprising – but now new figures have proved that the summer lull failed to materialise in July, with global M&A volume hitting $549.7bn, the highest figure since the global financial crisis. The figures, by Dealogic, showed deals peaked at $559.2bn – but that was in April 2007, shortly before the [...]
Pension reforms: Drawdown customers warned over scammers August 7, 2015 George Osborne's reforms to pensions, which mean people can withdraw their savings and buy, say, a Ferrari (or just shares in Lloyds Banking Group), was seen as a revolutionary move by most savers. But it seems scammers were also pretty pleased about it: now Citizens Advice has warned pensioners and pensioners-to-be to be on alert. [...]
William Hill share price dives as it takes a punt on lottery software maker NeoGames August 7, 2015 Shares in bookies William Hill fell almost 5.5 per cent to 388.3p this morning, after it revealed it had taken a gamble on online lottery software maker NeoGames, spending $25m (£16m) on a 29.4 per cent stake. Luxembourg-based NeoGames is a "pioneer of online scratch cards", William Hill said, but has moved into online lotteries. [...]
Quindell share price plummets by a third on its first day of trading since June August 6, 2015 The share price of troubled insurance claims processor Quindell fell almost 40 per cent to 79p this morning as trading in the company's shares resumed for the first time since it suspended them in June. The news came the day after the the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) launched an investigation into the company, following a [...]
Freesat unveils 200 pc boost to Freetime customers August 6, 2015 Subscription-free satellite TV service Freesat boosted subscribers to its Freetime TV service by 200 per cent in the first half of this year, it said this morning The figures In results posted this morning the company said sales of its Freetime service grew 48 per cent year-on-year in the first six months of the year, with [...]
Super Thursday: Dissent in the ranks as Bank of England monetary policy committee votes 8-1 to hold interest rates August 6, 2015 UK policy makers took a step toward raising interest rates for the first time in eight years today as the Bank of England’s committee of rate-setters broke their unanimity on voting to keep borrowing costs at record lows. The pound fell 0.49 per cent against the dollar to 1.5526 on the news, sliding 0.24 [...]
Super Thursday: Here what analysts think of today’s interest rate vote August 6, 2015 It's Super Thursday – the day the Bank of England unleashes a raft of data, from the latest decision on interest rates (spoiler: they left it at 0.5 per cent) to its quarterly inflation report, in an effort to increase transparency. The most anticipated section of the release was the the minutes of the latest [...]
Vladimir Putin gets pugnacious about prophylactics as Russia bans foreign condom imports August 6, 2015 It seems Vladimir Putin is getting serious about sex, after he rubber-stamped a new rule banning foreign condom imports. Yep – despite the fact that the number of people infected with HIV in Russia almost doubled from 500,000 to 930,000 between 2010 and 2014, Putin has added prophylactics to a list of banned foreign foreign [...]
Halifax house prices: UK house price growth continues shrinks to its lowest since December August 6, 2015 Growth in UK house prices dipped to 7.9 per cent in the year to July, the lowest figure since December 2014, figures published by Halifax this morning showed. On a quarterly basis, prices grew 2.4 per cent, lower than June's 3.3 per cent, while the monthly figure fell by 0.6 per cent – its first [...]
