Doubts about ‘value investing’ have returned to their pre-dotcom crash high December 18, 2017 Is legendary investor Warren Buffett losing his golden touch? On our Value Perspective investment blog, we would never dream of suggesting such a thing but type “Buffett losing touch” into Google and you will find plenty of financial commentators have, from time to time, had no such qualms. What is really interesting, however, is not [...]
City flexes its muscle as Brexit talks resume: Transitional services deal needed by Christmas to avoid harm say business leaders August 28, 2017 Brexit secretary David Davis and his EU counterpart Michel Barnier launched the latest round of exit talks last night, as the City expressed fresh concern over the lack of progress on a transitional deal for financial services. Senior business figures are warning the government to secure a bespoke transitional Brexit deal for financial services by [...]
Veteran venture capitalist Jon Moulton is set to power a new £400m energy infrastructure fund July 2, 2017 A sustainable energy and infrastructure investments firm backed by veteran venture capitalist Jon Moulton is set to launch a new £400m fund. Greensphere Capital is considering setting up a new fund that will work on projects including solar farms and power lines. Moulton, the founder of Better Capital, is a non-executive director of Greensphere Capital [...]
The London underground: How the underground music zines of the 1960s helped to define the counterculture | City A.M. October 4, 2017 Although I grew up in London with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Joan Bakewell, the day I discovered the underground press, to use the vernacular of the day, “blew my mind”. Since 1975, I’ve collected printed materials associated with the British underground press, an anarchic phenomenon that provides a fascinating alternative history of the [...]
BorrowMyDoggy: The firm matching dogs with people who want to borrow them May 17, 2017 A dog is for life, not just for Christmas.” Not any more, thanks to Rikke Rosenlund, founder of BorrowMyDoggy. As we discovered at a recent Leap 100 breakfast, now a dog can just be for Christmas. Or even a weekend. Rosenlund came up with the idea for BorrowMyDoggy on a summer’s day in 2012, when [...]
Where is my mind? How an ancient psychedelic ritual in the Oaxaca region of Mexico turned into the trip from hell May 3, 2018 It’s a beautiful day in San Jose Del Pacifico, a small village high in the mountains south of Oaxaca City, southern Mexico, where I’m sitting in front of the world’s most frightening cup of tea. Opposite me is Paolo, a 19-year-old “mushroom guide” in whom I have placed an inordinate amount of trust. Are you [...]
Life is sweet for Hotel Chocolat as it unveils a 28 per cent surge in first-half profits February 22, 2017 Life's pretty sweet for Hotel Chocolat at the moment: it has beaten expectations in its interim results and recorded a rise in profits too. The figures The chocolatier and retailer beat expectations with a tasty 28 per cent jump in pre-tax profits to £11.2m in the first half of the financial year. Reported revenue rose 14 per [...]
Christmas traditions return: Boxing Day is going to outperform Black Friday to be the biggest shopping day of the year December 24, 2015 Christmas is a time for traditions, and Boxing Day is expected to return to its position as the UK's biggest shopping day. All those predictions that Black Friday would be the busiest shopping day of 2015 have fallen wide of the mark: experts are now saying Boxing Day will smash records this year. Sales are expected to [...]
House of Fraser cashes in on Christmas sales January 11, 2017 House of Fraser capitalised on the Black Friday and Boxing Day week sales in November and December, boosting its like-for-like sales by 2.7 per cent in the festive period. The department store said that during its six-day Black Friday sales event, total sales increased 2.7 per cent on the same period the year before. Unsurprisingly, a hefty [...]
Is Britain a BBQ nation? Laura Ivill thinks so and she’s spent the last few days of summer learning some grill skills September 1, 2016 Brits love to BBQ. I count the quality of the summer by how many BBQs I’ve had. A couple of years ago I had a New Zealand friend staying. So in tune with the BBQ lifestyle are the Kiwis that his family would have a cook-up on Christmas Day. On balmy evenings we would fire [...]