What Alan Shearer has to teach us about inflation August 4, 2017 So who are the world’s three biggest spenders on defence these days? That’s right – the US, China and … Manchester City. Boom, boom. Yes, we may still be a week away from the start of the 2017/18 English Premier League season but of course it has been generating back-page headlines for weeks now thanks [...]
Revealed: The most-traded investments in July reflect a commodities recovery August 2, 2017 Investment and trading platform Interactive Investor has revealed its top most-traded for the month of July. The rankings reflected a recovery in commodities price, the ever-present poplarity of tech stocks, and strong demand for Lloyds. Top by a mile Most traded large cap shares Lloyds AstraZeneca Glaxosmithkline BP BT Despite missing analyst expectations in its [...]
Ukraine’s central bank pulls plug on PwC bank audit rights over PrivatBank’s balance sheet hole July 20, 2017 The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) announced today that it had pulled the plug on PwC’s domestic bank auditing rights, after it had failed to identify a $5bn (£3.9bn) balance-sheet hole at the country’s largest lender in previous audits. It comes after last December’s state takeover of PrivatBank by the NBU, in a move aimed [...]
BT’s Openreach checks £1.5bn Carillion deal July 17, 2017 Openreach, the infrastructure arm of BT, has launched a “forensic investigation” into its landmark £1.5bn contract with crisis-hit Carillion after the construction firm had over half its value wiped out in under a week. The telecoms giant is examining how Carillion’s troubles could affect the delivery of much-needed upgrades to Britain’s internet infrastructure, sources told City [...]
BT and Rolls-Royce investigations: Auditors are not there to find fraud, says accounting body boss July 13, 2017 Accounting investigations into audit sign-offs of two British stalwarts are not a sign the profession is in crisis, a senior figure at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) said today. But Vernon Soare, the ICAEW’s chief operating officer, admitted there is an “expectation gap” over the role of the auditor. KPMG [...]
RBS’ mis-selling fine is certain to highlight American hypocrisy, Worldpay’s bid invitation and no rush for the new Ofcom chair July 7, 2017 It was hard to suppress a laugh last week at the sanctimonious angst of corporate America at the fine doled out by Brussels over Google’s anti-competitive behaviour by favouring its shopping service over those of rivals. Those Europeans, came the wailing from across the Atlantic, are extracting money from flagship US companies with little justification. [...]
Virtual reality rocket: Sector set to swell with Brits owning 16m headsets within five years June 14, 2017 The UK virtual reality sector is set to grow at an annual rate of 76 per cent in coming years, making it the fastest growing UK entertainment and media market. A report by PwC released today estimated the entertainment and media sector will be a £72bn market in the UK by 2021. It is forecast [...]
Job cuts? No, artificial intelligence and automation will usher in a new wave of roles, IT bosses say June 12, 2017 Widespread job losses will not be a natural consequence of greater use of artificial intelligence (AI) by UK businesses, research released today by telecoms giant BT suggested. In fact, a third of those polled by BT felt AI and automation said the so-called “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, would have the opposite effect: to create more jobs. [...]
Editor’s Notes: Tory immigration policy will harm the City and our economy, Corbyn’s deleted Chavez past and City AM founders included in Change Makers series May 26, 2017 Back when George Osborne was chancellor and Theresa May was home secretary, the pair would argue over the wisdom of seeking dramatic reductions in net migration. May was obsessed with the idea, and clearly still is, whereas Osborne was instinctively more comfortable with the view that immigration was nothing to worry about and the benefits [...]
It looks like BT is ramping up its experiments with blockchain technology, patent filings reveal April 19, 2017 BT is ramping up its work on blockchain technology, with several patents related to the distributed ledger technology filed in recent months. The FTSE 100 telecoms firm which also provides IT services to high profile clients globally, such as Nationwide Bank, has filed at least six patents since the start of the year in relation [...]