The inspiring tale of Falklands vet’s business triumph April 1, 2012 MY DAD was in the RAF, and I wanted to be a pilot. But after a school medical found I was colour-blind, my hopes were shattered. My dad pushed me to become an accountant, and I eventually gave in and enrolled in an accountancy degree in Dundee. From the start, I knew I wasn’t going [...]
Scottish house price dip means good value buys February 16, 2012 SCOTLAND: land of hunting, shooting, fishing…and fortified castles set amid hundreds of acres selling for less than £3m, the cost of a mere flat in certain parts of London. As Jamie Macnab, of Savills’ Edinburgh office, says: “Someone said to me once that four square miles of London is worth more than the whole of [...]
PROPERTY NEWS January 26, 2012 IRISH ARTIST MAKES HOUSE BUILT OF SHREDDED EUROS An unemployed Irish artist has built a home from the shredded remains of €1.4bn (£1.2bn), a monument to the “madness” he says has been wrought on Ireland by the single currency. Frank Buckley built the apartment in the lobby of a Dublin office building that has lain [...]
Li Ka-Shing: the Superman who soared from the factory floor February 20, 2012 LI Ka-Shing, Hong Kong’s richest man and chairman of Cheung King Infrastructure, is one of the largest foreign investors in the UK following two major acquisitions over the past two years. Last year, the octogenarian billionaire snapped up Northumbrian Water for £2.4bn, in the largest takeover of a UK publicly listed company since Kraft bought [...]
What to look out for in the Budget March 20, 2012 ● PERSONAL TAXES The tax-free personal allowance was originally due to go up £630 to £8,105 as part of a long-term plan to take everyone earning below £10,000 out of income tax. That increase will be accelerated – almost doubled, in fact – as part of a plan to help low-earners more. But the scheme is [...]
IPO fever returns to Europe as Ziggo and DKSH go public March 20, 2012 BIG European stock market listings have made a strong comeback after almost eight months without a major deal, suggesting that investors may be overcoming fears of a Eurozone collapse. Yesterday Swiss trading house DKSH sold 17.1m shares – equivalent to a third of its equity – for the highest expected price, raising 821m Swiss francs (£690m) for [...]
Stamp duty hike to 7pc for £2m homes March 20, 2012 GEORGE Osborne will today launch a new tax raid on Britain’s wealthiest property owners by raising the level of stamp duty on the priciest homes. He will use his third Budget to increase the stamp duty payable on property transactions worth more than £2m, in a move that stops short of an annual “mansion tax” [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 19, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES SKY PULLED NEWS STORY ON F1 SHARES The chief executive of British Sky Broadcasting ordered a news story to be removed from the Sky News website after an executive producer complained that it had upset Formula 1 racing teams. Jeremy Darroch intervened after the article, which described a controversial agreement involving F1 chief [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 19, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES SKY PULLED NEWS STORY ON F1 SHARES The chief executive of British Sky Broadcasting ordered a news story to be removed from the Sky News website after an executive producer complained that it had upset Formula 1 racing teams. Jeremy Darroch intervened after the article, which described a controversial agreement involving F1 chief [...]
Bridgepoint on brink of Quilter deal January 23, 2012 PRIVATE equity house Bridgepoint is set to buy Quilter, an arm of Morgan Stanley’s wealth management unit which the US bank is offloading for a second time. The buyout group, whose investments range from Pret a Manger to a series of continental financial and business services groups, is expected to pay around £180m for the [...]