House purchase approvals hit two-year high as buy to let investors rush to beat April’s stamp duty change February 29, 2016 Mortgage lending picked up in January as buy to let investors rush to buy properties before a hike in stamp duty in April. Net mortgage lending rose to £3.7bn in January from £3.2bn in December, according to figures published by the Bank of England this morning. There were 128,709 mortgages approved. Approvals for house purchase, as opposed to [...]
Budget 2016: Economists warn of tough times ahead for the British consumer February 29, 2016 British households will have to rein in their spending next year as inflation creeps back up and a fresh round of austerity bites, economic forecasters are warning today. The EY Item Club, which uses Treasury models to make its forecasts, said consumers will enjoy “one last hurrah” this year while inflation remains below one per [...]
Dozens of UK KPMG partners face the chop in overhaul led by chairman Simon Collins February 26, 2016 A top level restructure at one of the Big Four accountancy firms will see close to 50 partners shown the door. KPMG will shed dozens of partners as part of a push by Simon Collins, its UK chairman, to overhaul the professional service firm’s operating model and bring more technology into the business to suit [...]
Consumer’s guide to blockchain: How the cryptocurrency will revolutionise life for the consumer February 18, 2016 When I spoke to Peter Kirby, chief executive of blockchain startup Factom, he laughed when I described myself as a “blockchain traditionalist”. I meant that I still think of blockchain as the technology that made bitcoin credible – a peer-to-peer distributed ledger which immutably logs all transactions. This all sounds like jargon, so what does [...]
City Moves for 17 February 2016 | Who’s switching jobs February 17, 2016 Investec Investec Securities has announced the appointment of Andrew Whitney to its research team to cover the pharmaceuticals sector. Andrew joins from EY, where he was a senior manager in the corporate finance strategy team, conducting strategy projects and deal diligence in the life sciences and healthcare sectors. He has extensive experience in pharmaceuticals research, [...]
Let the good times roll: EY Item Club forecasts strong growth for UK financial services February 15, 2016 The financial services industry can expect decent growth over the next few years, a group of forecasters have said today. Mortgage lending, business borrowing and consumer credit are all set to grow at healthy rates over the coming years, as the UK economy shrugs off recent severe stock market declines. However, the EY Item Club said [...]
Oil skids lower, with the price of Brent crude hovering close to $30 while WTI crude falls six per cent February 9, 2016 Global oil price benchmark Brent crude fell 7.8 per cent to $30.32 per barrel in turbulent trading today today – hovering on the brink of the psychologically significant $30 mark. Meanwhile, US oil price benchmark WTI crude fell 5.9 per cent, crashing to $27.94 per barrel. Brent crude has traded above $30 since the end of January – but it was pushed [...]
UK trade deficit widens in 2015 but outlook is bright for exports February 9, 2016 The UK's trade deficit – the amount it imports over what it exports – widened last year. The deficit widened by £0.3bn to £34.7bn, the Office for National Statistics said this morning. Britain ran a £125bn trade deficit in goods compared with a £90.3bn surplus in services. However, the widening in the trade deficit was [...]
Boardroom diversity isn’t everything: Female executives boost firms’ profits February 8, 2016 Stop obsessing over women on boards: if you want results, what really matters is more women in leadership, according to a major study analysing 21,000 companies worldwide. Firms with at least 30 per cent female leaders stand to gain as much as six percentage points to their profit margins. Those with no female representation pay [...]
January sets the bar high for mega deals this year February 3, 2016 The start of 2016 has been the biggest since 2008 for merger and acquisition activity, according to deal data firm Mergermarket. A whopping $254.9bn worth of deals, up 6.7 per cent from the same period in 2015, have been done around the world to date this year with the latest deal to be announced, the takeover [...]