What Britain must do to win back investors from a surging Germany June 19, 2012 BRITAIN is on the verge of losing its foreign direct investment (FDI) crown. After a 15 year record as the leading European destination, the investment tide has begun to flow away. While the UK remains Europe’s top destination for inward projects, we will lose this crown to Germany, within two years, unless action is taken. [...]
Cheap government credit isn’t the magic bullet for our future growth June 17, 2012 SOMETIMES life sucks. Sometimes, one day we are active athletic people, running and playing squash, and the next we experience a bad back injury and cannot run fast or twist any more. When such things happen, it is tempting to believe that there must be a solution, some magic bullet that will restore us quickly [...]
The Brics start to look wobbly as emerging market growth slows June 17, 2012 AS INDIA looks set to lose its investment grade rating, are the Bric nations starting to tumble? The last ten years have seen investors flocking to the vaunted opportunities available in the markets of the Bric grouping of Brazil, Russia, India and China. Over that time, Bric indices have almost quadrupled their gains and their [...]
Carlsberg plans giant Chinese brewery build June 13, 2012 CARLSBERG is to build a giant brewery in China to tap growth in the world’s largest beer market, as the Danish group looks to expand outside sluggish European markets. The world’s fourth-biggest brewer will sign the deal on Friday to coincide with the visit to Denmark of Chinese President Hu Jintao, and spend 4bn Danish [...]
Anthony Bolton’s $750m China fund has lost a fifth of its value June 12, 2012 ANTHONY Bolton’s Fidelity China Special Situations fund has lost a fifth of its value since its launch in Asia in 2010, lagging the wider Chinese stock market, it was revealed in an annual report yesterday. Bolton, one of the UK’s best known and most successful fund managers, said in the report that he continued to [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING June 6, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES Mittal reduces China steel ambitions Lakshmi Mittal has signalled a dramatic scaling back of ArcelorMittal’s ambitions to expand in China’s steel industry through an agreement to cut the company’s stake in one of the country’s top metals producers. The chairman, chief executive and main owner of the world’s biggest steelmaker had hoped to [...]
Producers of whisky look to middle classes in the BRICs June 6, 2012 WHENEVER Scottish nationalists are selling the case for independence, they peddle the myth that some clapped-out oil fields in the North Sea will bring decades of guaranteed prosperity. They would be better pinning their flimsy economic arguments on a liquid that is being exported in ever greater quantities: Scotch whisky. Diageo’s decision to invest £1bn [...]
Western exporters threatened by softening Chinese demand June 6, 2012 BRITAIN is well behind its competitors in taking advantage of China’s impressive growth over the last decade, a top economist said yesterday, and it “will not be easy” for UK firms and the government to rectify that as China’s import growth begins to slow. China’s growth has been largely investment led in the past decade, [...]
Spain nears bailout June 6, 2012 SPAIN warned that it is locked out of markets yesterday as an emergency call by G7 leaders failed to stem rising fears that the Eurozone’s fourth biggest economy will soon need a bailout. Madrid’s Treasury minister Cristobal Montoro told Spanish radio: “The risk premium says Spain doesn’t have the market door open. [It] says that [...]
Singaporean feng shui firm to list on Aim June 5, 2012 A SINGAPORE-BASED consultancy firm that advises blue-chip companies using the ancient Chinese philosophy of feng shui is to float on London’s junior stock market to raise £1.5m. New Trend Lifestyle Group, which counts Citibank and Standard Chartered among its clients, announced yesterday its intention to float on Aim at the end of June to fund [...]