City Moves for 13 July 2015 | Who’s switching jobs July 12, 2015 New Quadrant Partners The private client law firm has appointed Helen McGhee as a senior associate. She joins from Squire Patton Boggs. McGhee was recently named rising star at the LexisNexis Taxation Awards, and advises on all aspects of tax affairs. BMO Global Asset Management The investment management firm has announced the appointment of David [...]
Best of the Brokers for 13 July 2015 July 12, 2015 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com BAE SYSTEMS Berenberg upgraded its “hold” recommendation for the British weapons company to “buy”. The broker said high activity levels in Saudi Arabia will generate an upside, while there will be minimal impact from UK defence cuts and procurement reform comparative to UK [...]
Retail sales and jobs data expected to prove positive – The week ahead July 12, 2015 RETAIL sales data and employment figures due out this week are expected to show improvement, while some of the UK’s biggest brands will update the market over the next five days. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) retail sales monitor for June, out tomorrow, is expected to show healthy year-on-year retail sales growth in June. Data [...]
Eurozone crisis could hit stocks – New York Report July 12, 2015 AS FIRMS in the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 begin to release lackluster second quarter results, rich valuations threaten to keep the US stock market spinning in place. At 16.5 times forward estimates, the S&P 500 is about 10 per cent more expensive than its historic average of 15, according to Thomson Reuters. The price [...]
Greece’s humiliation has exposed the lie at the heart of the European Union July 12, 2015 I have always thought there should be a special circle of hell reserved for those who cause major crises, but who then, through some sort of fluke, walk between the raindrops, suffering no ill personal effects as they bequeath the mess to posterity. If there is any justice, Yanis Varoufakis – the bombastic, overrated, erstwhile [...]
China’s stock market crash: Liberalisation cannot be fully controlled July 12, 2015 Visiting China last week to discuss finance with regulators, officials and industry people in Beijing and Shanghai was a timely reminder of the country’s economic vitality. All the facts confirm this – China is the world’s second largest economy (probably the largest on a purchasing power parity basis), and it is growing at twice the [...]
Better apprenticeships will transform UK productivity July 12, 2015 Of recent proposals to boost growth and productivity in London, by far the most controversial is the Airports Commission plan to build a third runway at Heathrow. The government is split on the issue. Both Boris and his likely successor as Tory candidate for mayor, Zac Goldsmith, are bitterly opposed. Both represent west London constituencies [...]
Three years after it was introduced, is it now time to end the Funding for Lending Scheme? July 12, 2015 Philip Booth, a professor at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and editorial and programme director at the Institute of Economic Affairs, says Yes. The Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) should never have been started. Initially, it could have been justified on the ground that the market was desperate for credit. But what has been its effect? [...]
Hotel Chocolat co-founder Angus Thirlwell on how he built a chocolate empire July 12, 2015 Europe is awash with chocolatiers and the British consumer is spoilt for choice. So the idea that someone could set up a chocolate company with £10,000 and take it from startup to a market-conquering beast in just a decade seems a little far fetched. But that is what Angus Thirlwell and his business partner Peter [...]
Scaling up: Overcoming the challenges – Investec Comment July 12, 2015 Business growth takes many forms, but some companies have the capacity to achieve truly remarkable rates of expansion. They are scaling up: increasing revenues at a rate of over 20 per cent annually for more than a couple of years. This phenomenon is not exclusive to fast-growing markets or sectors. It may be that [...]
