London’s taxes are bailing out the rest of high-spend Britain January 7, 2013 TAXES paid in London and the Southeast are paying for benefits and public spending in the rest of Britain to the tune of more than £10bn per year, according to new figures out yesterday from analysts at Oxford Economics. In the tax year 2010-11, London and the Southeast paid a total of £10.4bn more in [...]
Child benefit for better off ending today January 7, 2013 THE GOVERNMENT yesterday acknowledged today’s child benefit changes are not perfect, but insisted removing the handouts for high earners is still a step in the right direction. Any household with at least one person earning over £50,000 will lose some of its child benefit, with those on more than £60,000 seeing the cash stopped completely. [...]
Republicans to rule out fresh tax hikes in US January 7, 2013 US SENATE minority leader Mitch McConnell yesterday ruled out raising tax revenues again on top of the tax hike on the wealthy in the fiscal cliff deal, and said the full focus must now be on spending cuts. “The tax issue is finished, over, completed,” the Kentucky Republican said on US television’s ABC network. “That’s [...]
Sony Music and BMG team up to bid for Universal’s Parlophone January 7, 2013 SONY Music and BMG have joined forces to bid for Parlophone and other EMI assets being sold by Vivendi’s Universal Music Group. The pair are understood to have agreed to bid jointly to increase their chances of winning the highly sought-after assets over other suitors. If their bid is successful, they will then split the [...]
Labour forces Commons vote on future of the UK pub industry January 7, 2013 THE LABOUR party will this week demand action to save Britain’s pubs from closure after scheduling a House of Commons debate on the issue. Shadow pubs minister Toby Perkins will use Wednesday’s opposition day debate to call for action against large landlords, known as “pubcos”, that are accused of abusing their control over thousands of [...]
UK hedge funds crack elite list of performers January 7, 2013 TWO of the UK’s biggest hedge funds have rolled back the US dominance of the industry to creep into the top five best performing hedge funds in the world, a poll shows. Funds run by CQS, led by founder Michael Hintze, and Odey Asset Management, Crispin Odey’s Mayfair based outfit, have both cracked the top [...]
Rolls-Royce is hit by claims of bribery in China engine deals January 7, 2013 ROLLS-ROYCE has been accused of bribing two airlines in China, as more details emerge about a corruption investigation centred on the FTSE 100 firm’s overseas arms. The engineering giant said in December that it had handed information to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), after an internal probe uncovered “matters of concern” in Indonesia and China. [...]
France to spend €2bn on jobs January 7, 2013 France will reallocate €2bn (£1.6bn) from its 2013 budget to state-aided job creation as part of efforts to stem unemployment, French budget minister Jerome Cahuzac said yesterday. With joblessness at a 13-year high of 10.3 per cent, President Francois Hollande has promised to turn things around this year and hopes that plans to create thousands [...]
Roche drops bids for Illumina January 7, 2013 Swiss pharmaceutical group Roche is no longer considering a bid for US gene-sequencing company Illumina, chairman Franz Humer was quoted as saying yesterday. “Illumina is definitely off the table. They were not willing to abandon the totally unrealistic price they were asking for. Roche does not do acquisitions that don’t create value,” he told Swiss [...]
Centamin gold export allowed January 7, 2013 Egypt has allowed Centamin to export a shipment of gold after blocking it for several weeks because it did not have the proper permits, a customs official said yesterday. Centamin has been plagued by difficulties in Egypt over the last three months, with a court questioning its right to produce gold at its only mine, [...]
