Coronavirus: Herefordshire farm locked down after 73 cases confirmed July 13, 2020 A farm in Herefordshire has been locked down after 73 of its workers tested positive for coronavirus, it was announced yesterday. Public Health England and Herefordshire council said that up to 200 employees at the farm had been asked to self-isolate due to the outbreak at vegetable producers AS Green and Co. Workers at the [...]
FTSE 100 opens higher ahead of US earnings season July 13, 2020 The FTSE 100 opened higher and Asian markets rose overnight amid cautious optimism about a coronavirus treatment and the reopening of economies. London’s blue-chip index was 1.1 per cent higher at 6,161 points. The FTSE 250 index was up 1.2 per cent. European markets also rose, with the continent-wide Stoxx 600 climbing 0.7 per cent. [...]
BT warns of outages if UK bans Huawei too fast July 13, 2020 BT chief Philip Jansen today issued a warning to the government that removing Huawei from the UK’s telecoms network too soon could case mass service outages across the country. A decision is due this week from Number 10 on whether to impose tougher restrictions on China’s Huawei, after intense pressure from the US to ban [...]
Heathrow calls for help as passenger numbers crash 95 per cent July 13, 2020 Heathrow airport has called on the government to act faster to protect the aviation industry as it said passenger numbers crashed 95 per cent in June compared to a year earlier. The airport again hit out at the government’s travel quarantine policy, saying it has already hit capacity and linking it to the grounding of [...]
Market abuse in the age of coronavirus July 13, 2020 During lockdown I have been re-watching a few of my favourite movies about crime in the capital markets — older classics like Wall Street and Boiler Room, as well as the more recent The Big Short and The Wolf of Wall Street. The reality of market abuse is somewhat less glamorous. It is, however, just [...]
Europe is no longer America’s sidekick when it comes to China July 13, 2020 With the death of the thrilling composer Ennio Morricone this past week, I have been thinking (and humming) a lot about the Spaghetti Westerns that made his name. For the spaghetti trilogy contains just about every human emotion it is possible to think of. Love, hate, revenge, loyalty, honour, cruelty, and power — they are [...]
As Britain embarks on a new trading chapter, the City is looking east July 13, 2020 The City of London’s international interconnectedness has always been fundamental to its success as one of the world’s leading financial centres. And with more than 250 foreign banks here employing tens of thousands of people, I welcome the recent easing of travel restrictions to and from the UK as another step towards the City’s Covid-19 [...]
London leads Europe in follow-on fundraising with busiest period in a decade July 13, 2020 While London markets may have faced a lull in new placings, they had their busiest half for follow-on fundraising in a decade. Data from accountancy firm EY shows more than £21bn of funds were raised in the first and second quarters in London. In the six months to June, existing issuers dominated the market raising [...]
World’s biggest firms to borrow $1 trillion amid coronavirus crash July 13, 2020 The world’s biggest companies are set to borrow as much as $1 trillion (£790bn) this year as they try to weather the coronavirus crisis, according to one of the City’s biggest asset managers. The world’s 900 biggest companies borrowed an additional $384bn between January and May by issuing bonds as they scrambled to strengthen their [...]
