TikTok owner mulls Hong Kong IPO, once it can fly by hawkish regulators August 9, 2021 China’s ByteDance, the owner of popular short video platform TikTok, has yet again tabled plans to list in Hong Kong once it has addressed Chinese regulators’ concerns, according to reports. The news and entertainment group is eyeing the fourth quarter of this year or early 2022, the Financial Times reported, citing sources familiar with the [...]
How to win over companies and influence a better future August 9, 2021 Companies’ annual general meetings (AGMs) could be testy affairs back in the 1980s and 1990s, the UK’s era of mass share ownership. One former CEO of that period recently confessed to me: “Our security would ask if the venues had a sloping stage that made it impossible to run up. They were intense meetings.” Such [...]
Cabinet ministers plan big push to get civil servants back to Whitehall August 9, 2021 Cabinet ministers are planning a big drive to get civil servants back to the office after concerns grow regarding the lack of staff at desks. Senior cabinet ministers have expressed their concern at the number of those still working from home, with one telling The Times that career prospects should be mentioned in the drive [...]
Aston Martin Vantage F1 Edition 2021 review: safety car goes off-grid August 9, 2021 The Aston Martin Vantage F1 Edition is the showroom version of the official grand prix safety car. Tim Pitt drives it on the road and track.
The Analyst: Is Netflix going to be able to swim up-stream? August 7, 2021 In the middle of another summer results season, the outlook for many media and tech companies – like many other sectors – is generally positive. But bucking that trend is behemoth Netflix, where net subscriber additions – the bread and butter of the business, after all – missed analyst expectations by around a quarter of [...]
Aussie rugby sevens team to undergo alcohol counselling after Tokyo bender August 6, 2021 Australia’s Olympic rugby sevens team will have to undergo alcohol counselling after a string of booze-fuelled incidents in Tokyo. After several days of partying, things came to a head on the team’s flight back from Japan, for which the squad received an official complaint from Japan Airlines. According to reports, the team spent the 10 [...]
Private equity needs to start speaking up for itself – it could be the key to ‘levelling up’ August 6, 2021 Private equity’s reputation is once again in the spotlight. With the supermarket Morrisons in the industry’s crosshairs, the public memory is reminded of previous scandals involving other household names. The multi-billion-pound bidding war for a major employer, headquartered in the north of England, has understandably attracted the interest of ministers and opposition politicians sensitive to [...]
China tech crackdown: From Jack Ma’s disappearance to online tutoring debacle August 5, 2021 Chinese technology giants once seemed untouchable, with billions of profits through aggressive expansion. But that status is now more uncertain after a year of Beijing’s sweeping regulatory crackdowns that have spread like wildfire across sectors. The saga started last October when Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, who founded e-commerce behemoth Alibaba, criticised China for lacking a [...]
City watchdog intensifies crackdown on high-risk products August 5, 2021 The City watchdog has intensified its crackdown on high-risk financial products being used to exploit retail investors, it announced today. The Financial Conduct Authority has stopped a Cypriot-based firm, BDSwiss Group, from offering high-risk contracts for differences to UK investors. Read more: City watchdog launches money laundering probe into Monzo Sarah Pritchard, executive director, markets [...]
Hello Sunshine, Reese Witherspoon’s company behind hit Big Little Lies, valued at $900m in Blackstone deal August 2, 2021 Academy award-winning actress Reese Witherspoon’s media company, Hello Sunshine, is selling itself to a newly formed media firm backed by Blackstone Group Inc for an undisclosed sum. The sale will value the company at about $900 million, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Founded in 2016, Hello Sunshine is the women-led production house behind [...]