UK house prices: Stamp duty payments have fallen by half since George Osborne introduced reforms, but Londoners are missing out June 12, 2015 The amount property buyers are paying in stamp duty has halved since George Osborne introduced new measures aimed at making homes more affordable in the last Budget – but Londoners are massively missing out on those savings, new research has found. A study by the Post Office and the Centre for Economics and Business Research [...]
Greek crisis: IMF negotiating team gives up and goes home June 11, 2015 The International Monetary Fund (IMF) team responsible for negotiating a deal with leaders from Greece to unlock funds which will prevent it from defaulting are heading back to Washington, the organisation said today. In a statement released this afternoon, it said the team had left Brussels after "failing to make progress on a debt deal [...]
US oil and gas M&A falls to 12-year low as oil prices fall June 11, 2015 Mergers and acquisitions in the US oil and gas sector were at their lowest since 2003 in the first half of this year, new data has suggested. A survey by Dealogic showed M&A volume fell to $29.5bn (£19bn) over 202 deals in the six months to the end of June, down 50 per cent from [...]
Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis: “We will not accept a one per cent primary budget surplus” June 11, 2015 Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has told MPs that the country will not accept a primary budget surplus target of more than one per cent. Read more: S&P lowers Greece's credit rating further The country had originally proposed a target of 0.6 per cent for 2015 – significantly below the 1.5 per cent mooted by [...]
Swedish krona jumps against the euro as it climbs out of deflationary spiral June 11, 2015 The Swedish krona jumped against the euro this morning after official data showed it had come out of deflation for the month of May. The krona rose more than one per cent to 0.108 against the euro, and 0.56 per cent to 0.1217 against the dollar. Prices in the country rose 0.1 per cent in [...]
Think the UK is expensive? Hong Kong tops global house price rankings – while prices have fallen the most in Ukraine June 11, 2015 If you thought UK house prices were rising at an unmanageable level, spare a thought for the residents of Hong Kong, where prices have jumped 18.7 per cent in the past year, according to Knight Frank's latest global house price index. Turkey is next, with a year-on-year rise of 18.6 per cent, while prices in [...]
Royal Mail share price drops as government nets £750m from sale of 15 per cent stake June 11, 2015 The government sold off half its remaining stake in the Royal Mail this morning at 500p per share – half again as much as its original price when it listed in October 2013. Read more: Lessons learned as final parcel of Royal Mail goes on sale The offer netted the government £750m, leaving it with [...]
Edwina Dunn: We must challenge archaic misconceptions around women in science – Tim Hunt hasn’t helped June 11, 2015 As a Nobel Prize Winner, Tim Hunt is among a select group of respected scientists that use their voice to actively change science for the better. Yet, this week he chose to reinforce a truly damaging stereotype about women working in the sciences. Read more: "Let me tell you about my trouble with girls" [...]
The parking permit postcode lottery – and why Birmingham and Manchester trump London by £300 June 11, 2015 Living in a city and owning a car was always going to be an expensive pursuit – but it turns out the gap between what councils charge residents to park varies wildly. A study by Churchill Car Insurance has found that while some districts charge nothing for their residents to park, in other areas, it [...]
Carry-on luggage on airlines including Lufthansa and Emirates is about to get even smaller June 10, 2015 It's one of life's certainties, on top of death and taxes: arrive 10 minutes late to the queue for your gate on a budget airline, and you'll inevitably be forced to stow your carry-on in the hold, thus adding roughly an hour to your journey. Now the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has come up [...]
