Belfast has big plans to become the home of the Titanic and a top TV shooting location. But will that help the property market? November 2, 2018 A couple of weeks ago, a consortium of hedge funds clubbed together to raise $19.5m to buy bric-a-brac from the bottom of the ocean. At first glance, these 5,500 items bore no relation to each other; a bowler hat, the sleek curves of a bronze angel, a steel door. Their immense value derives solely from [...]
Facebook hires Jerome Pesenti, an expert from UK startup BenevolentAI, to lead its artificial intelligence efforts January 24, 2018 Facebook has poached a top scientist from a UK tech startup to lead its artificial intelligence efforts. Jerome Pesenti is leaving BenevolentAI – a startup using machine learning technology to discover new drug treatments for diseases like motor neuron disease – to take on Facebook’s top job in artificial intelligence research. Read more: Facebook’s promising [...]
TSB boss Paul Pester set to lose millions in bonuses as computer meltdown costs top £100m April 26, 2018 TSB boss Paul Pester faces losing out on millions of pounds in bonus pay as the high street challenger bank counts costs of more than £100m from its botched computer system migration. Thousands of customers have been left without access to their bank accounts online for days since the bank tried to move to a [...]
From vicars to City titans: Goldman Sachs, Shell and Barclays among names behind £550m Lloyds legal battle | City A.M. April 4, 2018 Today City A.M. reveals the varied and surprising names behind a massive £550m legal battle with Lloyds over its takeover of HBOS at the height of the financial crisis – and the cast includes major institutions, aristocrats, vicars and politicians. The groups, which includes institutions such as Goldman Sachs, Nomura Asset Management and pension funds [...]
Technology and smart ledgers are the key to averting a global trade crisis April 20, 2018 When I presented on the prospects for trade to the meeting of the Atlantic Council in Washington DC last summer, the mood of the assorted diplomats was gloomy. The Trump tariffs hadn’t happened yet but the administration was gearing up for them. Meanwhile, fears about the consequences of Brexit exercised the minds of not only [...]
Unilever threatens to pull advertising spend with tech giants Google, Facebook, and Twitter over toxic culture and fake news February 12, 2018 One of the world’s biggest advertisers is threatening to slash the amount of cash it spends with tech companies if they fail to tackle fake news and toxic cultures on their platforms. The stark warning comes from Unilever and its marketing chief Keith Weed who oversees an annual budget of €7.7bn (£6.8bn), spent on marketing [...]
The changing face of world shares March 22, 2018 The US market represents more than one half of the total quoted wealth in world shares. It is, however, a very different pattern of wealth holdings from previous decades, reflecting the huge changes underway in business models and customer preference. Looking at just how much the index has changed is a good way of mirroring [...]
Wimbledon 2018: Zverev, Dimitrov, Del Potro, Kyrgios, Cilic – Can anybody challenge Federer and Nadal? July 1, 2018 Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have a stranglehold on men’s tennis. It’s not the first time the two greats of the game have combined to monopolise the grand slams, but with those two legends aged 36 and 32 respectively some might have expected their superpowers to be on the wane. They’re not. Federer and Nadal [...]
The London Stock Exchange Group has started using blockchain technology July 19, 2017 London Stock Exchange Group will use blockchain technology to help un-listed businesses make shareholding information more transparent. It will use IBM’s hyperledger technology to make the information of small and medium sized private companies digital, which the exchange hopes can give them access to more mature investors. A small trial will initially begin with Borsa [...]
Could a robot replace Jose Mourinho? The growing presence of artificial intelligence and machine learning in football December 19, 2017 If you pay attention to the countless academic studies devoted to the subject or the dire prophecies from Elon Musk or Stephen Hawking, an artificial intelligence (AI) age is rapidly approaching that promises to make most of our jobs redundant. A McKinsey and Company report published earlier this year estimated that more than half of [...]