Brace for “hard rebalancing” of UK economy in 2017 January 23, 2017 The fall in the pound will result in a “significant readjustment” of the UK economy away from consumer spending and towards exports, regardless of the results of the Brexit negotiations. Economists at Ernest & Young says UK exports will increase by as much as 3.3 per cent this year, and 5.2 per cent in 2018, [...]
Weak retail sales in December have pushed sterling below $1.23 January 20, 2017 The pound plummeted today after retail sales figures were much weaker than analysts expected. Sterling fell 0.47 per cent to 1.2284 against the US dollar. Sales in December fell by 1.9 per cent month-on-month – the largest monthly fall since May 2011 – which was considerably more than the 0.1 per cent drop analysts predicted, Martin Beck, senior economic advisor at EY said. [...]
Comparethemarket.com owner pushes stock market float back to end of 2017 January 19, 2017 The owner of price comparison website Comparethemarket.com has pushed back its plans for a £2bn stock market float, City A.M. has learned. BGL Group appointed JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley to advise on its initial public offering (IPO) last summer, and was expected to list early this year. Read more: London set for biggest IPO in [...]
Lloyds Banking Group takes the top spot on Stonewall’s top 100 LGBT employers as banking and legal dominate the list January 19, 2017 Lloyds Banking Group has taken the top spot of Stonewall's top 100 LGBT employers list. Banking and legal dominated the list of the charity's most inclusive employers. Lloyds, which came second to MI5 last year, launched a new colleague volunteering programme and formed official partnership with lesbian, gay, bi and trans (LGBT) charities. Law firm [...]
Saga picks KPMG as its new auditor, replacing EY after a 10-year relationship January 17, 2017 Saga has ditched Ernst & Young (EY) as auditors in favour of KPMG, the company announced this morning. EY has been the FTSE 250 firm's group auditor since September 2014, having previously been appointed auditor across the Saga's principal trading subsidiaries in 2007. Read more: Over 50 per cent growth to Saga profits Under audit directives, listed [...]
Douglas Flint warns more clarity on Brexit is needed to safeguard City jobs as HSBC mulls moving as many as 1,000 to Paris January 10, 2017 The group chairman of HSBC has today warned more clarity is needed on Brexit to prevent firms, including his own, collectively moving thousands of jobs out of London preemptively. In an almost three-hour grilling with the Treasury Select Committee, Douglas Flint cautioned the lack of coherent guidance on where the government intended to go with Brexit [...]
The 9 best paying companies in the UK for directors January 5, 2017 Recruitment website Glassdoor has ranked British companies based on how much they pay directors — senior staff who generally take care of a particular area of a company. The site, which lets staff anonymously submit company reviews and salary information, used data compiled over the past three years to produce its list. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the [...]
Make 2017 a year of celebration – not the suffocation of London’s Night Time Economy January 5, 2017 We live in interesting times. This term, actually a Chinese curse, reflects all the hope, possibility and opportunity of a period – as well as the worst that we can imagine from it. What has been “interesting” recently is the overwhelming cultural and political view that the British public is a nasty species that requires [...]
The 10 companies where directors earn the highest salaries January 3, 2017 Thinking of climbing the career ladder in 2017? C'mon, who isn't, let's be honest. It's a new year bringing new opportunity, after all. But if you're looking to make the leap to director level, or are eyeing a change of scenery at that level already, some moves are worth making more than others – when [...]
Britain’s third quarter GDP growth revised: Financial services provide better than expected growth December 23, 2016 Britain's third quarter growth has been revised up – but in an official shake-up of the figures year-on-year growth has fallen. The UK's GDP growth in the third quarter had previously been reported as 0.5 per cent but today updated statistics revised this up to 0.6 per cent. However, the official statistics for the first [...]