Burberry and asset managers lift FTSE to 7,000 – London Report April 9, 2015 BRITAIN’S FTSE 100 rose yesterday, as a recovery in emerging market-exposed stocks and gains in Burberry, driven by bid speculation, kept the index near all-time highs. The blue-chip index .FTSE closed up 1.1 per cent at 7,015.36 points. It hit a record high of 7,065.08 in March. With just weeks to go before the 7 [...]
General Election 2015: There’s a deafening political silence around those who opt to go private April 9, 2015 Anthropologists argue that, to explain a situation, you have to examine its “silences”. The General Election is no different. In almost every area where government remains active, there is a growing group of voters who pay their taxes and then “go private”, but remain politically unacknowledged. In healthcare, the UK is already a world away [...]
IMF’s Christine Lagarde on the three big risks to the global economy April 9, 2015 Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, has said that the global economy risks slipping into a "new mediocre" which implies a prolonged period of low economic growth. "[The] global recovery continues, but it is moderate, and uneven," she said ahead of the release of the IMF's economic forecasts next week. The last forecasts released in [...]
Co-operative Group returns to profit amid turnaround plan April 9, 2015 The Co-operative Group has returned to profit – a reversal of fortunes on the previous year's losses of £255m. The figures Full-year profit before member payments – the equivalent of pre-tax profits for a PLC – came in at £124m in 2014. Revenues slipped slightly, down three per cent at £9.4bn for the year to [...]
Non-dom crackdown: What impact will taxing the global rich have on the UK? April 8, 2015 Tight finances and pressure to break the deadlock in the election campaign combined yesterday in a very focused new round of tax – on the foreign earnings of over 5,000 rich British residents. Labour first introduced a levy on long-term non-domiciled residents back in 2008, and the coalition has hiked it since. In December, chancellor [...]
Scrapping non-doms would make Britain less competitive – not more April 8, 2015 “You can easily spend 75 per cent, or 85 per cent, of your time in the UK… but be a non-dom. No wonder people are pissed off.” This wasn’t Ed Miliband yesterday, during his speech announcing his intention to abolish the tax status that applies to over 100,000 UK residents, but a Conservative MP, Richard [...]
PwC tells HMRC to pay up 10 years after MG Rover collapse, claiming £56m in overpaid VAT April 8, 2015 PwC is tapping HMRC up for £56m in overpaid VAT, 10 years to the day that the car giant entered administration. The financial services firm, which handled MG Rover's administration and subsequent liquidation, is claiming the taxman received excess payments on vehicles manufactured by the Midlands-based group and supplied to fleet operators “dating back a [...]
Mark Carney fears UK at risk from Greek contagion April 7, 2015 Britain’s banks and insurers could be in danger if Greece leaves the Eurozone, the Bank of England warned yesterday. The UK is not heavily exposed to Greece itself, but if it exits the single currency then it could cause financial panic in other indebted economies like Spain and Italy, which would then hit Britain hard. [...]
City Moves for 08 April 2015 | Who’s switching jobs April 7, 2015 Marsh The insurance and risk management firm has appointed Sally Williams as director of risk and governance. She joins from National Australia Bank Group, where she was head of risk, London branch. Williams has also worked as group director of risk at Aviva. Legal & General Investment Management The asset management firm has announced two [...]
Mutuals will now be able to issue shares – transforming competition in finance April 7, 2015 The Mutuals’ Deferred Shares Bill received Royal Assent last month. The Act will give mutual businesses a new option to raise tier one capital in the form of deferred shares. This is good news for leading mutuals like LV=, but what will this mean in practice and does it change the competitiveness of mutuals in [...]