PwC says £10bn overshoot may force Osborne into further cuts November 29, 2012 THE CHANCELLOR may be forced to reconsider his fiscal targets, PwC analysts said yesterday, as public borrowing looked likely to overshoot targets by around £10bn. Weaker than expected tax revenue has caused public borrowing figures to exceed the Office for Budget Responsibility’s expectations, the financial services giant said, and slower than expected trend growth could [...]
Who’s switching jobs November 29, 2012 Cordea Savills The international property investment manager has appointed Reynold Chan as business development director, Asia. Chan was most recently at Calista Consultants, and began his career in 1986 at Prudential providing real estate. He will be based in Hong Kong and report to Justin O’Connor, chief executive at Cordea Savills. BNY Mellon The investment [...]
Best of the Brokers November 29, 2012 CINEWORLD Canaccord has reiterated its rating for the cinema chain at “buy” and has upgraded its target price to 350p from 280p due to projected new sites and an increase in online usage. CHEMRING Espirito Santo has lowered its target price to 320p from 350p after the departure of chief executive David Price and disintegration [...]
FTSE touches three week highs on back of Rio pledge and US hopes November 29, 2012 BRITAIN’S FTSE 100 scaled three-week highs yesterday, cheered by promises of spending cuts at miner Rio Tinto and by growing hopes of achieving a US budget deal to avoid recession in the world’s biggest economy. The US ‘fiscal cliff’ of some $600bn in spending cuts and tax hikes that is otherwise due to come into [...]
Wall St rises as tax talks make trading volatile November 29, 2012 US stocks finished higher yesterday as investors bought on sporadic dips in a market roiled by conflicting comments from Washington about negotiations on an agreement to avoid the “fiscal cliff.” Tech shares, including Research In Motion and Advanced Micro Devices, helped the Nasdaq outperform the broader market. Telecommunications and health-care stocks were the day’s best-performing [...]
Leveson is wrong – regulation is not the answer to every problem November 29, 2012 THE two scandals which gave rise to the Leveson Inquiry were phone hacking and bribing the police. Both are already crimes. The scandal was failure to enforce the law. Yet Leveson baldly dismisses these issues – asserting without evidence that “more rigorous application of the criminal law does not and will not provide the solution”. [...]
New treaty threatens the economic opportunities of a laissez-faire internet November 29, 2012 AT the beginning of this year, in this very column, I outlined the threats to freedom online both in the UK and abroad through the International Telecommunications Union. Sadly, my predictions were correct. We are facing the risk of media regulation at home while an international treaty negotiation abroad threatens to regulate the internet as [...]
Ireland shows why press controls are not the solution November 29, 2012 LORD Justice Leveson met his deadline yesterday, issuing the findings of his eight month inquiry into the “culture, practices, and ethics” of the press. It came as no surprise that he concluded the state has a role to play in overseeing newspapers. Leveson decided that a statutory body, much like Ofcom, should take responsibility for [...]
Should we be worried that zombie firms will worsen the effects of the recession? November 29, 2012 YES Jon Moulton We should be afraid of zombie companies that eat away at good assets and valuable finance. Allowing bad business models to persist spurns one of the very few positive effects of a recession: clearing out the economically unproductive companies to make way for strong, innovative ones. Forbearance is a nice phrase, but [...]
Rapid responses November 29, 2012 The tax debate [Re: Firms call for tax breaks in infrastructure, Monday] I would happily support an overhaul of the tax system to try and bring better balance to, and a fairer sharing of, the burden of paying our country’s bills. However, the vilification of anyone who legally manages their tax affairs is worrying. The [...]
