BT and Virgin to vouch for UK’s broadband flair September 18, 2016 Rivals BT and Virgin Media will this week launch a joint advertising campaign to defend the UK’s broadband. Ads running in newspapers across the country will claim there has been a combined £15bn of investment in the UK’s broadband infrastructure over the past five years and highlight average download speeds are faster than in Germany, France, [...]
Job cuts? No, artificial intelligence and automation will usher in a new wave of roles, IT bosses say June 12, 2017 Widespread job losses will not be a natural consequence of greater use of artificial intelligence (AI) by UK businesses, research released today by telecoms giant BT suggested. In fact, a third of those polled by BT felt AI and automation said the so-called “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, would have the opposite effect: to create more jobs. [...]
Ukraine’s central bank pulls plug on PwC bank audit rights over PrivatBank’s balance sheet hole July 20, 2017 The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) announced today that it had pulled the plug on PwC’s domestic bank auditing rights, after it had failed to identify a $5bn (£3.9bn) balance-sheet hole at the country’s largest lender in previous audits. It comes after last December’s state takeover of PrivatBank by the NBU, in a move aimed [...]
Hermes GPE raises $620m from pension funds to plough in to co-investment deals October 5, 2017 Hermes GPE, the firm which invests in private equity funds and deals, has raised around $620m (£472m) for its co-investment strategy. The fund raked in commitments from a club of pension funds, professional investors and asset managers – including the Local Pensions Partnership, a collaboration between Lancashire County Pension Fund and the London Pensions Fund [...]
Last week in the City March 23, 2018 This week, China warned the US that it is not afraid of engaging in a trade war, the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates again, and Facebook shares plummeted after allegations that millions of users' profile data had been harvested. The FTSE 100 was down 3.5% over the course of the week by mid-session on Friday. [...]
EY heads off competition and snares BHP Billiton audit from 2019 August 22, 2017 Big Four accountant EY has snared a lucrative victory, replacing KPMG as mining giant BHP Billiton’s auditor. BHP conducted an audit tendering process during the year in the wake of regulations forcing firms to rotate their statutory accountants. As a result, incumbent KPMG did not bid to continue its role. EY will take over from [...]
BT Group reports 35 per cent hike in revenue but earnings drop 10 per cent October 27, 2016 BT Group said today that while Brexit hasn't had any major impact on the firm, weakness in sterling was hitting its finances, as it reported a 10 per cent drop in earnings but a revenue jump of over one third for the three months to 30 September. The figures Revenue was up 35 per cent [...]
Rivals hit back at BT criticism of their campaign August 16, 2016 BT rivals – TalkTalk, Sky, and Vodafone – have hit back following BT boss Gavin Patterson’s complaints over their Fix Britain’s Internet campaign. In a letter signed by Sky chief executive Jeremy Darroch, Jeroen Hoencamp, the outgoing head of Vodafone UK, and TalkTalk CEO Dido Harding, the bosses rail against the level of BT’s spending [...]
BT boss says “it’s quite possible” that 80 per cent of today’s jobs won’t exist in the future October 29, 2016 Gavin Patterson probably doesn't want to worry anyone but he thinks it's "quite possible" that 80 per cent of the jobs that people do today won't exist in the future. Yes, 80 per cent. Speaking at the HSBC Innovation Summit on Friday, the BT boss said: "It's a combination of ubiquitous networks, ubiquitous data, ubiquitous [...]