Hargreaves Lansdown founder quits board for pastures new April 14, 2015 HARGREAVES Lansdown co-founder Peter Hargreaves yesterday said he will step down from the board of the company he founded 34 years ago, saying it was the “right time” for him to go. Hargreaves, who with Stephen Lansdown founded the online stockbroker in a Bristol bedroom in 1981, will continue to work at the group but [...]
Cinven sells off £136m stake in Spire Healthcare April 14, 2015 SPIRE Healthcare shares slumped yesterday after private equity backer Cinven shrunk its stake further by placing £136.4m of shares with investors. The placing, priced at 340p, represented a hefty discount to Spire’s 367p closing price on Monday night. Shares closed down more than 10 per cent yesterday, reflecting the lower placing price. Private equity outfit [...]
City Moves for 15 April 2015 | Who’s switching jobs April 14, 2015 Hastings Insurance The insurance firm has announced the appointment of Richard Hoskins as its group chief financial officer. He joins from AIG, where he was chief financial officer of its global commercial insurance business and the Americas region. Hoskins has also held roles at Aviva Group. Euler Hermes UK The credit insurance firm has appointed [...]
Best of the Brokers for 15 April 2015 April 14, 2015 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com WM MORRISON Shore Capital said it welcomed the speedy shake-up in management under new chief executive David Potts and reiterated his “buy” rating with a target price of 200p. He said Morrisons was on track to become a more “shareholder-friendly” stock before its [...]
FTSE 100 stocks rise again on merger activity – London Report April 14, 2015 MINING stocks helped take the FTSE 100 close to another record high yesterday while potential deal activity also gave the stock market a boost. Miners such as Anglo American, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton rose 2.8 to 4.1 per cent as metal prices bounced up off their earlier lows. The UK mining index was up three [...]
Strong results provide Wall Street a boost – New York Report April 14, 2015 US STOCKS were buoyed yesterday, aided by the energy sector and March quarterly earnings reports topping modest expectations following worries about a strong dollar. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 59.66 points, or 0.33 per cent, to close at 18,036.7. The S&P 500 gained 3.41 points, or 0.16 per cent, to 2,095.84 and the Nasdaq [...]
Conservative manifesto: Extending right-to-buy will transform the prospects of low income families April 14, 2015 The centrepiece of the Conservative Party manifesto, unveiled yesterday, was a significant expansion of the right-to-buy scheme. Giving families the ability to own their own home is a wonderful thing, and extending the scheme to housing associations, as the Conservatives propose, will certainly do that. The broad economic benefits of home ownership are well established, [...]
The 38 per cent rule: There’s a limit to how much the state can tax the people April 14, 2015 Ed Miliband’s proposal to tax non-doms more harshly may be good, populist politics. But does it make economic sense? At most, the yield will be around £1bn, even if people do not alter their behaviour in response to the change in policy. The actual amount generated could even be negative if enough non-doms leave the [...]
It’s not just commuters who are suffering due to London travel chaos April 14, 2015 For the last six months, reports of “travel chaos” have dominated London’s headlines, illustrating the misery besetting commuters in the capital. As timetables are torn up, stationary trains are held outside stations, and commuters are forced to take alternative routes to work, businesses across London are feeling the impact just as keenly as travellers. We [...]
Don’t worry about zero UK inflation: The outcome of the election will be far more significant for markets April 14, 2015 Britain narrowly avoided heading into deflation last month, with prices unchanged compared to a year ago. But over the past six months, prices have fallen by 1 per cent annualised after adjusting for seasonal trends. Should we worry about deflation and the prospect of falling prices? Well, after stripping out some of the more volatiles [...]
