Nobel Prize in economics: What is auction theory and why is it important? October 12, 2020 US academics Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson have won the 2020 Nobel Prize in economics for their groundbreaking work on the theory and practice of auctions. Milgrom and Wilson, 72 and 83 respectively, are both professors at Stanford University in California. They will split the 10m krona (£850,000) prize and each receive a gold medal. [...]
Coronavirus: Redrow secures £300m facility through BoE’s emergency scheme April 9, 2020 Housebuilder Redrow has secured a £300m lending facility under the Bank of England’s emergency coronavirus financing scheme. The developer, which has furloughed 80 per cent of its staff using the job retention scheme, is also in talks to extend its existing revolving credit facility by £100m to £350m. Redrow said this morning that it expects [...]
Bitcoin marks a significant step forward in trust for all of us March 12, 2021 Bitcoin marks a significant step forward in trust for all of us, says Michael Haynes, founder and CEO, Etherbridge.
London house prices: Mayor of London Sadiq Khan invests £25m in Pocket Living to build homes for first-time buyers August 15, 2017 Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is investing £25m into Pocket Living, a developer which uses modular construction to build affordable homes. The investment will help Pocket create 1,059 new one- and two-bed flats for first-time buyers. It sells its homes at 20 per cent below the market rate to first-time buyers living in the borough. [...]
Blockchain is Terrible for Supply Chain. Right? June 23, 2020 Blockchain gets a lot of bad press in general. Either the technology is being overhyped. Or it is being confused with cryptocurrency and taking on all the negativity around that. There is plenty of coverage around how blockchain won’t scale and does not have sufficient performance to be viable in the enterprise. And blockchain doesn’t [...]
BA looks set to recover from pandemic, so why are its 40-something pilots giving up their gold-plated pensions? April 20, 2021 In turbulent times, when the future of a company is being called into question, it is not uncommon for staff to transfer out of their employer’s defined benefit (DB) pension scheme, if they have one. Although seen as “gold-plated”, some DB scheme members worry about their scheme falling to the pension lifeboat fund, and that [...]
Profits plunge at retirement housebuilder McCarthy & Stone April 10, 2019 Retirement housebuilder McCarthy & Stone’s profits decreased by two-thirds in the first half of 2019 as it undertook a strategic shift to deal with a weak second-hand housing market. Read more: UK house prices drop in March after shock rise, says Halifax The company said it had increasingly turned to discounting and other incentives as [...]
Coronavirus: UK car sales suffer worst May performance since 1952 June 4, 2020 UK new car sales crashed 89 per cent last month as car dealerships remained shuttered, marking the industry’s worst May performance since 1952. Only 20,247 new cars were sold over the month — a decline of 163,477 compared to the same month last year, according to new figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and [...]
Taking the higher ground rent: How homeowners can stop themselves falling victim to dubious leasehold contracts May 28, 2019 Finally able to buy your first home, you skip away from the rat race that is the rental system, proudly boasting the much-revered title of “homeowner”. And yet, if you’ve bought a leasehold property, it might not be the picket-fenced dream that you’d bargained for. Millions of UK properties, typically flats, are sold as leasehold. This [...]
Divestments fail to add value for six consecutive years March 3, 2020 The majority of companies that sold portions of their business last year lost shareholder value, meaning that divestments have failed to add value for six consecutive years. Six out of ten companies that divested part of their business continued to struggle to add value, according to Willis Towers Watsons Divestment Performance Monitor. Based on share [...]