Public Register: Investors have published their FTSE naughty list of companies with the angriest shareholders December 19, 2017 This year has been punctuated by shareholder rebellions in businesses from WPP to Persimmon to the boardroom battle currently raging over the ousting of London Stock Exchange boss Xavier Rolet. But now shareholder anger at FTSE bosses’ pay packets has been dragged into the spotlight again, after the Investment Association launched its “naughty list” of [...]
Newcastle nearing takeover after positive talks between Mike Ashley and Amanda Staveley December 13, 2017 Newcastle are nearing a takeover by financier Amanda Staveley and her investment firm PCP Capital Partners after receiving a £300m offer for the Premier League club. Controversial owner Mike Ashley, keen to sell the club, held talks with Staveley at a London curry house last week that are believed to have reached an amicable conclusion [...]
England coach Trevor Bayliss calls for stump microphones to be turned down amid Ashes sledging December 3, 2017 England head coach Trevor Bayliss has called for stump microphones to be turned down so television viewers are not privy to the on-field sledging which has become a pertinent feature of the Ashes. On a truncated second day in Adelaide, which was shortened due to rain, Australia advanced their first-innings score to 442-8 before declaring [...]
How are Apps Using Bitcoin? November 14, 2017 Found on both IOS and Android, Bitcoin is used in apps ranging from wallets to apps that can help convert bitcoin to physical currency. There are also an increasing number of games that use Bitcoin as a reward to users completing engagements within their apps. Bitcoin can be used as a proxy to Bitcoin [...]
Local communities can decide how to spend cash from fracking through the Shale Wealth Fund – including paying themselves November 11, 2017 Communities near fracking sites will be given the power to decide how to spend the money they will gain through a new Shale Wealth Fund, even if they choose to hand the cash directly to local residents, the government confirmed today. The fund will provide up to £10m for each community close to an approved [...]
The march of time: How war led to some of horology’s finest innovations, from diving watches to the chronograph November 2, 2017 Halfway through Pulp Fiction, with typically unnerving intensity – not to mention outrageous casual racism – Christopher Walken’s Captain Koons coaxes a young Butch Coolidge from his TV cartoons and presents him with ‘The Gold Watch’. This time-piece, he explains, was so important to his father that, while detained in a Vietnamese prisoner of war [...]
Following in the tyre tracks of legendary rock stars through Morocco in a Bentley Bentayga November 1, 2017 As I steer off the ferry from Spain and burble through the customs gate, I catch sight of the Grand Mosque’s rectangular minaret that greeted Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg in 1967. I’m in Tangier, exactly 50 years later, on a mission to Marrakech and, like Keith and Anita, my girlfriend and I have arrived [...]
Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL review: Simply the best Android phones ever made October 18, 2017 Google’s new phones are rather good. The Pixel 2 and its bigger brother the Pixel 2 XL (identical in every way but shape, size, price and battery) are straightforwardly excellent. They are simply the best Android phones ever made. Life-changing, envelope-pushing, they can shift a paradigm from fifty paces. They do your laundry, improve your [...]
Sports Direct’s (SPD) shareholders gear up for revolt over Mike Ashley’s share buyback plans September 3, 2017 Sports Direct could face a shareholder revolt over its share buyback plan this week, as investors prepare to oppose the resolution at the retailer’s annual general meeting (AGM). Aberdeen Standard Investments will oppose more share buybacks on the basis that they hand too much power to Mike Ashley, chief executive and majority shareholder at Sports [...]
Scouting Silicon Valley: Premier League clubs are on the hunt for digital experts to bolster the boardroom August 11, 2017 Every transfer window brings with it an arms race between Premier League clubs for the world’s top talent, yet this summer teams have been scouting the geniuses of Silicon Valley alongside the goalscorers of La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga. Top European football clubs are increasingly searching for boardroom additions who are equipped to [...]