UK slips out of top 20 ranks for ease of doing business May 21, 2014 THE UK is not keeping up with its competitors as a place to do business, according to rankings released yesterday by the Economist Intelligence Unit. In the four years ahead, the UK will be the world’s 22nd best business environment, according to the group’s research – falling from 19th during 2009-2013. The country has been [...]
Matomy raises £40m after IPO plan resurrected July 8, 2014 Israel tech firm Matomy yesterday became only the second firm to list on London’s new high-growth segment after resurrecting a listing plan from earlier this year. The advertising technology company, which shelved plans in March, priced shares at 227p and immediately saw a pop in informal trading, pushing shares up to 237p. [...]
Blejer tipped for Israel bank post August 11, 2013 A former head of Argentina’s central bank Mario Blejer has emerged as a top candidate to run the Bank of Israel after two nominees dropped out in an embarrassment to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Blejer, 65, worked in senior positions at the IMF and World Bank before a brief stint as president of Argentina’s central [...]
The UK’s most frequent visitors are nowhere near its biggest spenders May 8, 2014 Almost 33m people visited Britain last year – an increase of nearly 5.6 per cent since 2012. What’s more (literally), is how much tourists spent: the amount jumped 12.7 per cent to £21bn last year, according to the Office for National Statistics. Its Top 50 tourism infographic puts the number of visits to the UK [...]
Frontrunner for Israel bank job pulls out July 29, 2013 THE ISRAELI Prime Minister’s nominee to be the next Bank of Israel governor withdrew his candidacy for the role yesterday. Jacob Frenkel, who previously held the top job at the Bank during the 1990s, was expected to return for another stint. Yet his candidacy has been hit by newspaper allegations that he had taken a bottle [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 06 June 2014 June 5, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES Juncker won’t give in to Cameron A defiant Jean-Claude Juncker has warned Britain that he will not bow to David Cameron’s objections or yield to press coercion in his bid to become European Commission president. The former Luxembourg prime minister told a private gathering of party colleagues that he was seeking a broad [...]
Bank’s reserves of forex not in world’s top 20 April 1, 2014 THE BANK of England holds less than one per cent of the foreign currency reserves raised around the world, and a far lower share than other central banks around the world, according to research released yesterday. A report on world financial markets by Deutsche Bank suggests that the UK had only $70bn (£42.1bn) in foreign [...]
How to defeat Isis: We already have a playbook for beating these extremists July 6, 2014 MUNICH – As the Fourth of July comes and goes, I have been jokingly told by friends that I share a trait found more often in East Asian cultures; that of ancestor worship. One of my sons is named after both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, so fervently do I believe in the civic religion [...]
Ukraine PM says there will be no recognition of Crimean referendum March 7, 2014 The Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has told CNBC that there will be no international recognition of the referendum aking the people of Crimea if they wish to join the Russian Federation. Yatsenyuk said: No-one will recognise this referendum, apart from maybe North Korea, Syria and Israel. I want to be very clear – Crimea [...]
Tel Aviv stock blunder wipes 99.9 per cent off Israel Corp August 26, 2013 THE TEL Aviv Stock Exchange, Israel’s major stock market, stopped trading on Sunday after a typing error caused shares in top listed firm Israel Corporation to crash 99.88 per cent. The mistake, thought to have been caused when a trading clerk accidentally typed in the wrong company to sell shares in, caused the exchange’s top [...]