War bunkers, pizza and lots of caffeine – how the City is preparing for referendum night June 23, 2016 Brexit "war bunkers" are being opened, extra staff brought in and sleep-deprived workers plied with pizzas, sweets and coffee to keep them going throughout the night as the City beds in for expected high levels of pre- and post-referendum trading. Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and JP Morgan will all have heightened [...]
Italian job: Law firm Fieldfisher agrees merger with Italy’s SASPI June 21, 2016 Fieldfisher has today agreed a merger with Italian law firm Studio Associato Servizi Professionali Integrati (SASPI). The merger, which will take the form of a Swiss verein style association, will take effect at the start of next month and SASPI will be adopting the Fieldfisher brand name. The two firms combined will have around 970 professionals and [...]
Which set of fans drank more during yesterday’s England vs. Wales clash? June 17, 2016 Do you drink more in commiseration or celebration? It's an age-old question. Is the desire to hit the bottle or go out on the town a bigger draw? And when do we feel best about splashing the cash – when half of it's getting spilt on the floor or being stewed over in a darkened corner? The answer [...]
Focus On Bloomsbury: House prices are blooming marvellous in this intellectual corner of central London June 16, 2016 Bloomsbury conjures up images of fusty intellectuals like former residents Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, EM Forster and John Maynard Keynes. Home to austere, prestigious institutions like the British Museum, the Royal Portrait Gallery and University College London, it isn’t necessarily somewhere you’d think of moving to. But the recent clamour for central London property has [...]
EU referendum: Ken Clarke reflects on a life spent pondering Europe June 15, 2016 Ken Clarke has not written the final chapter of his memoirs. It will be written, he says, after 23 June, so he can look back on the referendum on the European Union. After all, Europe is a thorny issue that has engulfed his political life, often put him at odds with his party and arguably [...]
Leaving the EU is a walk into the unknown that would put our prosperity at risk June 14, 2016 As arguments on either side of the EU referendum debate are increasingly cast as products of fear or fantasy, an objective assessment is becoming, for the many in the undecided camp, increasingly difficult. I appreciate that there are emotional and political considerations in this important debate. But I prefer to see it in purely business [...]
Before the bell: What you need to know before the US market open June 13, 2016 China's decelerating economy is causing fresh concern across international markets and the International Monetary Fund isn't helping. Here's what you need to know before the US market opens at 14:30 London time. The US market is pointing heavily south ahead of the open. The S&P 500 is down by 0.31 per cent in the pre-market. The Nasdaq [...]
Walmart’s China boss Sean Clarke set to become Asda’s next CEO June 12, 2016 Walmart is set to name Sean Clarke, the retailer's boss of its Chinese operations, as Asda's new CEO. The Big Four supermarket chain's parent company could make an announcement as early as this week, Sky News reported. The news comes after current boss Andy Clarke confirmed in an interview with Retail week last week that he's going to [...]
Tesco takes a hit on sale of Giraffe restaurants June 10, 2016 Tesco has confirmed it will sell its Giraffe restaurant chain to British restaurateur and food empire giant Ranjit Singh Boparan, the owner of Harry Ramsden's for an undisclosed fee. The supermarket giant also announced today it will offload its Turkish supermarket arm, Kipa in a deal which reduces the company's debt burden by £110m. Tesco bought Giraffe [...]
UK records strongest export growth since crisis as economy shrugs off Brexit fears June 9, 2016 The UK posted its smallest trade deficit in seven months in April as bumper export performance proved the latest sign that Brexit uncertainty is failing to knock the UK economy. British firms and consumers bought £3.3bn more from abroad than they sold overseas in April, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this [...]