Generating cash from caring April 29, 2010 IT’S NOT often that an entrepreneur comes up with a multi-million pound idea while out with his elderly aunts looking at care homes around the south of England. But that is what happened to ex-advertising whiz Mike Parsons. That was back in 1988. The dismal state of the care homes that he visited sparked an [...]
IMF plan: the wrong kind of reform April 21, 2010 IT is a quote that sums up the new cross-party consensus on London’s financial services industry. Reacting to proposals from the International Monetary Fund, which would hit all financial firms – including hedge funds and insurance companies, not just banks – with two very large new taxes, Alistair Darling had this to say: “The recognition [...]
Bellway urges caution over housebuilding February 5, 2010 HOUSEBUILDER Bellway today said it remains cautious over the prospects for the housing market despite a modest pick-up in sales in first-half trading. The Newcastle-based group sold 2,247 homes in the six months to the end of January, up 12 per cent on the previous year. Its order book stood at £390 million or 2,506 [...]
What Westfield tells us about UK Plc March 28, 2010 IF you want to understand what is happening to the economy, you could do worse than to check out the Westfield shopping centre in West London on a weekend. The place was packed to the rafters on Saturday afternoon, with long queues in front of every single one of the dozens of restaurants and cafes; [...]
Dunfermline’s £1.5bn of aid gets EU nod January 25, 2010 THE European Commission yesterday cleared a plan by British authorities to provide aid of over £1.5bn to facilitate the restructuring of Dunfermline Building Society. The restructuring saw the split-up of the building society, of which a part containing good assets and liabilities was sold in an auction to a competitor. “The Commission found that the [...]
US markets flourish as positive news floods in April 5, 2010 Shares of natural resources companies led the gains on expectations that an improving economy would drive up demand. US front-month crude oil futures topped $86 a barrel and gave a big lift to energy shares, with Exxon Mobil Corp up almost 1 per cent and Chevron Corp up 1.3 per cent. The S&P energy index [...]
TIMELINE | ABBEY ROAD STUDIO – A HISTORY February 22, 2010 THE BEGINNINGS The 19th Century town house at 3 Abbey Road, St John’s Wood, was purchased by EMI in 1929 with a view to transforming it into the world’s first custom-built recording studios. British classical music composer Sir Edward Elgar, opened the studios in a ceremony on 12 November 1931. Elgar can be seen in [...]
IT’S STILL TOO EARLY TO STOP THE STIMULUS February 8, 2010 WE ARE two-thirds of the way through the US fourth-quarter earnings season and 74 per cent of S&P 500 firms that have already reported have beaten analysts’ estimates. A further 9 per cent were in line while 17 per cent of companies fell short. The earnings season has not been good enough so far to [...]
From easy money to $1m comic books February 23, 2010 Q. What do quantitative easing and super-hero comic books have in common? A. Quite a lot. Cheap money from central bank asset purchases and ultra-low interest rates is helping to reinflate bubbles in parts of the global economy. UK house prices are soaring irrationally again, for instance. But my favourite anecdote comes from ComicConnect.com, a [...]
Q&A: SELLING February 11, 2010 Q.Dear Russell, I have been looking for a while and I have never come across a probate sale, despite hearing about them. How do you find out about these types of sales? A.Most probate sales – that is, when the home-owner has died – never make the open market, which is why you probably haven’t [...]