Not your average City suits: The private equity leaders turned to philanthropy at Impetus PEF December 20, 2017 “For me, it’s personal.” Those were the words which headed Andy Ratcliffe’s CV when he applied to be chief executive of the Impetus Private Equity Foundation (PEF), and almost two years into the job they seem to have stood him in good stead. Impetus PEF is something of a novelty in the City. It relies [...]
Why is Pakistan struggling to find its feet as a successful emerging market? December 18, 2017 The key dilemmas facing Pakistan’s equity market — a small investor base, few new listings on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), and shrinking turnover — are tied to the lack of trust among investors and issuers as well as unnecessary compliance and tax burdens. It will take greater professionalism among the intermediaries and the rationalization [...]
Adam Smith’s ambassador: Meet Sam Bowman, the free-market evangelist December 18, 2017 Rising to prominence as one of the key intellectual driving forces behind Thatcher’s sweeping privatisation of state industries in the eighties. The Adam Smith Institute (ASI) was – alongside others – a harbinger for a newfound symbiosis between the think tank movement, public policy and government institutions. Today it is one of London’s most well-known [...]
British consumers drink more sparkling wine for sixth year in a row as cava, prosecco and English wine take over December 18, 2017 Fans of prosecco, cava, and English sparkling wine have pushed up the national consumption of bubbly to the equivalent of 162 Olympic swimming pools. Sparkling wine consumption in the UK increased five per cent oveer the past year, to a total of 1.62m hectolitres, according to UHY Hacker Young. This marked the sixth successive year [...]
Pensions for teens: Government wants to extend auto-enrolment for young people December 17, 2017 The government wants to get nearly one million young people to start saving for the future by extending pensions auto-enrolment to 18-year-olds. Plans to extend the scheme will fall short of forcing five million self-employed to do the same but “targeted interventions” will be identified to get them saving. The Department of Work and Pensions [...]
Focus On Dulwich: Forget the new shiny skyscrapers, this London village attracts well-heeled families with good schools, period houses and bags of charm December 15, 2017 A Tube stop is usually the making of a neighbourhood in London. But in the case of Dulwich in south east London, the absence of a London Underground station may have been an advantage. Left to its own devices and hardly a tourist hotspot, some say this has allowed Dulwich to develop a character all [...]
Why consider investing in Asia now? Seven charts that tell the story December 15, 2017 Asian stock markets (Asia Pacific, excluding Japan) have seen a decent recovery in the past 18 months. After such periods, there is a natural tendency to assume there will be a pause for breath. This is when equity valuations can be helpful. When money has been invested when valuations were low, it has, historically, resulted [...]
Debunking the myths around tax-efficient investing December 13, 2017 Tax-efficient investing is a poorly understood market. This was evident in a recent poll of 2,200 people by national financial planning firm Fairstone, which found that just eight per cent of people are aware of venture capital trusts (VCTs), and a tiny four per cent are aware of the enterprise investment scheme (EIS). With [...]
Spot the symptoms, stay sane, and run from the bitcoin bubble December 13, 2017 At the time of writing, the price of bitcoin is almost $17,000. In April, it was $1,000, which means that if you had bought then, you would have made more than seventeen times your investment. Not bad. But, if you’d got in a little earlier, say in January 2016, you would have made over forty [...]
Huddersfield Town 1, Chelsea 3: Antonio Conte heaps praise on oft-criticised midfielder Tiemoue Bakayoko as Blues cruise December 12, 2017 Chelsea head coach Antonio Conte heaped praise on Tiemoue Bakayoko after the £40m midfielder went some way to silencing his critics as the Blues returned to winning ways at Huddersfield. Bakayoko, who was hauled off at half-time as Chelsea lost at West Ham on Saturday, opened the scoring, while further strikes from the impressive Willian [...]