A Churchillian answer to the Covid-19 debt: what we need is emergency consols November 19, 2021 The budget numbers are stark: taxes rising to their highest since the 1950s, government debt hitting 97 per cent of the national income, and that’s if we’re lucky. Much of the problem is down to the cost of pandemic measures—furlough, welfare, business loans and lower lockdown tax revenues—of around £550bn, equating to £20,000 for every [...]
Exclusive: Deloitte reveals the UK’s fastest growing tech companies November 19, 2021 London firms came out on top in Deloitte’s annual ranking of the UK’s 50 fastest growing technology companies. The country’s top 50 tech firms achieved an average growth of 3,337 per cent and saw combined revenues of £2.92bn this year, up 33 per cent compared to last year’s total of £2.2bn. The final score sheet [...]
Government ‘did not act on warnings’ from pre-Covid pandemic simulations, says audit November 19, 2021 The government failed to act on warnings from pandemic simulations and was left unprepared for Covid-19, according to a new parliamentary audit. Findings from a National Audit Office (NAO) audit said the government needs to “strengthen national resilience to prepare for future risks of this scale”, after its previous emergency plans lacked key detail on [...]
Bitcoin cashback announcement ends in controversy for UK fintech Mode November 18, 2021 Major retailers Boots and Ocado have distanced themselves from an announcement claiming they would offer customers cash back in Bitcoin. Today London-listed fintech Mode announced it would be adding more than 40 UK retailers including Boots, Ocado and Homebase to its crypto cashback rewards scheme. However, in comments to City A.M. both Boots and Ocado [...]
Whitehall should not be able to escape TfL’s case for funding November 18, 2021 There is a brilliant, if possibly apocryphal, anecdote that emerged from the 2000 US election. Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s election strategist, was finally accosted by the journalists who had been following Bush on the campaign trail for weeks, reciting the same speech, city by city, state by state. The hacks begged Rove to change [...]
GB Group to snap up Acuant in $736m deal November 18, 2021 Aim-listed GB Group has plans to snap up US identity verification company Acuant in a $736m (£547m) deal. Identity software provider GB Group, which has a market cap of £1.7bn, will merge with Acuant to create a “global-leader” in identity verification services and identity fraud prevention. According to GB Group the companies have a combined [...]
Don’t wait till after Christmas to sell your property November 18, 2021 There was a time when the property market could quite logically be split into seasons. But, such is the disruption to all our usual timetables and routines, that is no longer the case. The seemingly never-ending chain of events that impacted the the market in recent years, from tax changes and SDLT holidays to Brexit [...]
Property of the week: Country charm meets city pad November 18, 2021 If decamping to a country house sounds like the dream move for you and your family, but you don’t actually want to sever ties with the capital, then this could be the perfect solution – no compromise needed. Heathview Gardens sits over four floors and covers 8,584 sq ft. The clue to its desirability lies [...]
Bitcoin is starting to lose its grip on $60,000 November 18, 2021 Bitcoin was struggling to cling to the key psychological level of $60,000 level this evening, following signs that traders were reining in some of the excessive speculation which had sent the cryptocurrency soaring.
Alibaba shares slide five per cent as earnings fall short of forecasts November 18, 2021 Alibaba shares tumbled five per cent after the company’s third quarter financials disappointed investors. In results released today, Chinese tech giant Alibaba revealed that revenue for the three months to October 2021 was $31.1bn (£23bn), up by 29 per cent compared to a year prior, but a far cry from analyst predictions of $32.1bn Net [...]
