Mauritius: Paradise, but not as you know it July 24, 2019 This tropical island offers the cliched white sands and blue seas, but there’s more to discover at this most unusual of holiday destinations Pop quiz: What is the only tropical island to host its own classic car rally? This November, Mauritius will be the unlikely home to some of the rarest and most expensive classic [...]
The bigger they come: The amazing story of Wentworth Woodhouse, the largest home in England July 24, 2019 You’ve heard of Chatsworth, and Castle Howard, that Brideshead dream. You’ve heard of Blenheim Palace, the Duke of Marlborough’s monumental home. But what about Wentworth Woodhouse, the biggest house in England? Wentworth Woodhouse, the former seat of the Earls Fitzwilliam, could have been a house lost to history. Five miles from Rotherham, it sits in [...]
How one man defied Stalin and risked death by firing squad to conceal outlawed art from the Soviets July 24, 2019 If you had to hide a work of art, where would you put it? And what if there were 80,000 of them, you needed to keep them safe for an indeterminate but undoubtedly lengthy period, and the penalty for discovery was imprisonment in a Soviet gulag, or even death? The man who accomplished this feat, [...]
Kazakh billionaire Kenes Rakishev sells massive stake in Petropavlovsk July 16, 2019 The biggest investor in London-listed miner Petropavlovsk has sold his 22 per cent stake in the company as he tries to raise money for other projects. Kenes Rakishev, a Kazakh billionaire, said he was selling the stake for commercial reasons. It was bought by Roman Trotsenko, a Russian billionaire with investments in airports and mining, [...]
Attacks on central bank independence must be called out for what they are July 10, 2019 There lies great danger in normalising the extraordinary political events of our time. In the last 24 hours alone, reports have emerged of a plot to channel Russian oil money to a governing party in the Eurozone’s third biggest economy; a campaign group behind the UK’s leader of the opposition has disseminated an attack video [...]
Investors forecast returns of 10.7% – millennials expect more July 10, 2019 Investors expect total annual returns of 10.7 per cent over the next five years, according to a major new global study. Regionally, returns expectations were highest in the Americas, at 12.4 per cent. In Asia, investors expect 11.5 per cent and the figure was lowest in Europe at 9.0 per cent. The returns include growth [...]
How the US shale revolution changed the face of geopolitics July 8, 2019 In theory, we all know that major technical revolutions change and fundamentally disrupt the face of the world we live in. In practice, analysts of all stripes are too often glacially slow to realise this process when it is at work, let alone what it means. These events (such as the advent of the mass-produced [...]
Corporate reputation is too valuable to leave to chance July 4, 2019 Corporate reputation is a ubiquitous phrase today. Companies spend enormous sums trying to burnish their reputations. An army of corporate governance experts, politicians, regulators and, dare I say, journalists queue up to judge those efforts – and often find them wanting. Shakespeare, as you might expect, has the best lines on the subject. “I have [...]
Woodford sells shrimp shares on the stock floor July 2, 2019 Neil Woodford has slashed his fund’s stake in Benchmark Holdings, a genetics firm that develops disease-resistant shrimp, offloading £23m of shares as his asset selling spree continues. The stockpicker’s company, Woodford Investment Management, cut its stake in Benchmark from 12.5 per cent to under 2 per cent in a transaction last Friday. Read more: Neil [...]
Opec agrees to extend oil supply cuts by nine months July 1, 2019 Oil cartel Opec agreed to extend supply cuts by nine months today, in an attempt to maintain the price of oil in face of soaring US production and fears of a global economic slowdown. Opec is meeting today in Vienna and is holding a further meeting tomorrow with Russia and other allies. Opec and its [...]