What the other papers say this morning – 7 October 2013 October 7, 2013 FINANCIAL TIMES Temasek bids for Repsol gas stake Temasek and Sinopec have both approached Repsol over buying its €4.7bn stake in Gas Natural as the Spanish oil company seeks to raise cash to increase its investment in oil exploration. Repsol, which is working with Deutsche Bank and Citigroup to find a buyer for the domestic [...]
Letters to the Editor – 04/10 – Business growth, Stamp duty, Best of Twitter October 3, 2013 Business growth [Re: Cameron needs growth gazelles to bring life to his land of opportunity, yesterday] The Prime Minister’s gazelles will find it difficult to leap with elephants in the room. Indeed, our recent research looked in depth at certain features of over 250 companies – around 54 per cent with no serious financial issues and [...]
US politicians need to grow up before growth is shut down October 1, 2013 IT is time for Americans to decide: do they want to be a social democracy, Eurozone style, with high levels of tax and public spending, or do they want to be a small state society, with low taxes and low levels of public spending? The partial government shutdown and the political warfare between Barack Obama [...]
Osborne freezes fuel duty until the 2015 election September 30, 2013 GEORGE Osborne yesterday vowed to freeze fuel duty for the next two years, ensuring the chancellor will go into the 2015 election without ever raising tax on petrol. In a surprise announcement, the chancellor told the Conservative party conference in Manchester that, providing other savings can be found, he will ensure motorists are untouched. “Conservatives [...]
Tories alone on home loan plan September 29, 2013 DAVID Cameron yesterday announced that a controversial scheme offering taxpayer-subsidised mortgages will launch this week, without consulting his coalition partners and despite mounting criticism that he is stoking a new housing bubble. The second part of Help to Buy, which will enable buyers to purchase a house with a deposit of just five per cent, [...]
Cameron puts European rights law on notice September 29, 2013 DAVID Cameron yesterday indicated that he is ready to pledge to abolish the Human Rights Act in the Conservatives’ manifesto for the 2015 general election. The Prime Minister said he would do “whatever that takes” to ensure Britain can deport foreign criminals that the government believes pose a threat to national security, including replacing the [...]
Help to Buy isn’t the answer to the Conservative predicament September 29, 2013 WITH just 20 months to go before the general election, the Tories need to get their skates on. While many London-centric, private sector employed middle class professionals see Ed Miliband as an unelectable joke, the rest of the country disagrees. YouGov puts Labour 11 points ahead, suggesting a 100 seat majority for Miliband’s party, partly [...]
Two former City workers who built businesses out of the financial crisis September 29, 2013 Adam Taylor and Lexi Tamasan’s pet food subscription service is taking a sizeable bite out of a large market PET FOOD is not the first product most think about when founding a company. But when Adam Taylor saw his mother, who suffers from arthritis, struggling with a large bag of dog biscuits, it struck him [...]
Focus on… Hammersmith: It’s Hammersmith time in London September 26, 2013 HOMES in Hammersmith are increasing in value as young professionals and families compete for properties in the area. Bordered by Shepherd’s Bush in the north and Fulham in the south, the west London area has found its housing stock in short supply in recent years, leading to an average of six applicants per property and [...]
Inside Track: London is ready and waiting for the Royal Mail flotation September 24, 2013 THE FORTHCOMING privatisation of Royal Mail is the biggest post-financial crisis test so far of the market for new issues in London, which was virtually closed for business just a couple of years ago. In the years following the financial crisis, London became a notoriously difficult place on which to list shares in a new [...]