Page Group swings to half-year loss as coronavirus weighs on hiring August 5, 2020 Recruitment firm Page Group posted an £800,000 half-year loss this morning, as the coronavirus crisis severely impacted global hiring activity. Its profit for the same period last year was £74m, representing a decline of 101 per cent. Revenue fell 20 per cent to £655m, as the firm let go more than 700 employees — or [...]
Insurer Hastings’ shares surge as it agrees to £1.66bn takeover August 5, 2020 Insurer Hastings’ share price surged this morning after agreeing a £1.66bn takeover by Finland’s Sampo and South Africa’s Rand Merchant Investment. The cash offer will hand Hastings investors 250p per share as well as an interim dividend of 4.5p per share. That sent Hastings’ shares soaring 17 per cent higher to 253p in early trading. [...]
William Hill to close 119 betting shops as profit plunges August 5, 2020 William Hill will permanently close 119 betting shops due a drop in retail footfall, the gambling firm said this morning as it revealed that profit plunged in the first half of the year. The figures William Hill posted an adjusted loss after tax of £11.1m, after reporting an £81.9m impairment charge following an assessment of [...]
UK and Valneva agree to set up coronavirus vaccine facility in Scotland August 5, 2020 The UK government has struck a deal with biotech company Valneva to build facilities in Scotland to potentially develop a coronavirus vaccine. The deal would see a manufacturing facility built in Livingston, West Lothian, with the potential to produce 60m units of a vaccine. The government and the French biotech company struck an agreement last [...]
For young Londoners, working from home is a cramped and dismal experience August 5, 2020 Ah the great British work from home experiment: levelling the playing field, redressing work-life balance, enabling millions of people to work when and where best suits them. After a brief period of chaos at the end of March when the nation struggled to get to grips with Zoom and Amazon sold out of laptop stands, [...]
Without reform, the government’s Ponzi Pension Scheme will bankrupt us all August 5, 2020 For the past decade, financial markets have been dominated by the ongoing distortions set in motion by the last financial crisis in 2008. Regulatory overkill of City dealing, quantitative easing (QE) and zero interest rate policies (ZIRP) have combined to drive financial assets — stocks and shares — to record prices. Now, the consequences are [...]
The costs of lockdown can no longer be justified August 5, 2020 In an otherwise depressing week, two pieces of very good news emerged from India. In Mumbai, blood tests conducted by the city authorities on 6,936 randomly selected people found that some 40 per cent had coronavirus antibodies. Just 6,000 deaths have been reported so far in a city of 20 million. A similar exercise in [...]
A trade deal with Japan flickers on the horizon August 5, 2020 Time is running out to put the finishing touches on the highly anticipated UK-Japan Free Trade Agreement (FTA), among the most important of the UK’s trade treaties in the new post-Brexit era. If one is looking for a way to capture the spirit of global Britain, surely this is it. Japan is the UK’s fourth [...]
Scottish Widows becomes first investor in Blackrock climate fund August 5, 2020 Scottish Widows has become the first investor in Blackrock’s newly launched climate fund, which is designed for the transition to a low carbon economy. The pension provider is initially allocating £2bn of its pension portfolios into Blackrock’s Climate Transition World Equity Fund. It marks a shift in strategy for Blackrock, which is using data to [...]
The City View: Tony Matharu on why it’s time to get London moving again August 5, 2020 Subscribe to The City View Podcast: Apple / Google / Spotify / RSS In this episode Christian is joined by top hotelier and London businessman Tony Matharu, who believes the capital needs an injection of confidence to get people back on public transport, back in the office and back into the pubs, restaurants, shops and hotels. Also in this episode, Christian looks [...]
