Toy subscription service Whirli raises £4m seed funding round December 15, 2020 A London-based toy sharing subscription service has raised £4m in its seed round led by Octopus Ventures just in time for Christmas. Rather than a usual subscription service, Whirli subscribers borrow toys instead of purchasing them and any unloved or outgrown toys can be sent back and swapped for another item. Whirli’s service, which starts [...]
London in Tier 3: Will the City return to normal after Covid? December 15, 2020 The decision to move London into Tier 3 at midnight on Wednesday, following substantial rises in Covid-19 cases, may mean further delays to City workers returning to the office. This will come as another disappointment to the City as it had planned to entice workers back into their offices during a ”back to work week” [...]
Vaccine ‘gamechanger’ will see UK economy bounce back sharply, analysts say December 15, 2020 The coronavirus vaccine will help the UK economy recover more rapidly than most experts think, according to economists at consultancy Capital Economics (CE) who predicted Covid will barely affect growth in the long-run. The respected economics consultancy predicted the economy would grow by about 7.5 per cent in both 2021 and 2022, after shrinking by [...]
Online estate agent Purplebricks expects to beat profit forecasts December 15, 2020 Online estate agent Purplebricks said it will beat full year profit expectations due to a surge in demand during the coronavirus pandemic as homebuyers shifted to technology-led platforms. The figures The company said there are “reasons to remain cautious on the economic outlook” but said it is confident that Ebitda for the full year will [...]
Barclays fined £26m for mistreatment of customers in arrears December 15, 2020 The UK’s financial watchdog has fined Barclays £26m for failures in its treatment of customers who fell into financial difficulties. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that Barclays had mistreated some retail and small business customers who fell into arrears between April 2014 and December 2018. Read more: Parlez-vous Français? Paris’ finance sector gets ready [...]
Bushmills’ Causeway Collection is the perfect Christmas dram December 15, 2020 Bushmills has the largest collection of single malt whiskey on the island of Ireland. From its 400,000 or so barrels, Master Blender Helen Mulholland has been carefully monitoring the development of select casks to create their new Causeway Collection. Helen began working at the Bushmills distillery as an intern in the early 1990s, and during [...]
Study shows unethical leadership likely to ‘prevent corruption’ December 15, 2020 Unethical leadership can increase the prevalence of corrupt behaviour in organisations and workplaces. This is according to two Maastricht University studies, carried out by doctoral candidate Untung Manara and associate professor Suzanne van Gils, a lecturer in management communications and ethics, who were particularly interested in whether ethical leaders could help change the behaviour of [...]
Parlez-vous Français? Paris’ finance sector gets ready to seize post-Brexit opportunities December 15, 2020 Paris’ claims to be Europe’s culture and culinary capital are well known, however its finance credentials are somewhat less established. The City of Light ranked behind London, Zurich, Luxembourg, Geneva, Frankfurt and even Edinburgh in the World Bank’s Global Financial Centres Index for 2020. However, with Brexit around the corner, and no full EU equivalence [...]
West End landlord Shaftesbury swings to £700m loss December 15, 2020 West End landlord Shaftesbury swung to a loss of almost £700m this year as the value of its retail and hospitality properties plummeted due to the coronavirus pandemic. The figures Shaftesbury this morning reported a loss after tax of £699.5m, compared to profit of £26m in the previous year, due to revaluation deficits. Net property [...]
Lighting the flame December 15, 2020 Crypto interest opens The bullish camp gained further ground and the open interest (OI) surged back to within a touching distance of record highs, while the futures term structure was stretched even more in the wake of the broad-based risk on sentiment. As a result, Bitcoin traded briefly above the $19,500 level, before falling back [...]
