FC Nordsjaelland: How a Danish club’s global outlook has helped it to weather the Covid crisis October 23, 2020 An Englishman with no experience of running a football club and no track record in Scandinavia was always going to attract scepticism when he took over one of Denmark’s top teams. Throw in a wildly unconventional ownership model and radically idealistic notions of how the sport should be run and it is no surprise Tom [...]
What is ‘fake’ and what is ‘real’ in financial markets? April 1, 2020 I re-watched the Orson Welles docudrama ‘F for Fake’ the other day. The 1973 film is an exploration of what is fake and what is real in the art world. I was curious to see how it held up in the age of fake news. Well, the movie doesn’t have much to say about fake news, but it does [...]
Fintech can be the silver bullet to banking the UK’s unbanked January 15, 2020 Can new technology help the 1.23m people in the UK who don’t have a bank account? And could it improve the lives of the 10–12m who still struggle to access affordable loans? New research suggests that the answer to both those questions is yes. It is all thanks to London’s booming fintech sector — one [...]
Coronavirus: The government must outline the way forward April 8, 2020 It is said that it is always darkest before dawn. And with our nation in the grip of the Coronavirus crisis – with the economy sinking, civil liberties restricted, and the peak of infections and deaths approaching – it certainly appears to be a particularly baleful moment for the UK. But rather than dwelling on [...]
In full: PM Boris Johnson’s Tory conference speech in full October 6, 2020 Boris Johnson took the stage Tuesday for the Tories’ virtual party conference, announcing policies on 1:1 teaching and low-deposit mortgages, but also promising to unleash the private sector. Here’s the text in full. Good morning conference, I want to begin by thanking you for everything you did at the election, pounding the streets in the [...]
Naked houses: Unfinished homes give buyers a discount price – but are they practical? July 24, 2019 In case you hadn’t noticed, Britain is in the grip of its worst housing crisis since the 1940s. The verdict, delivered in a recent report from the Centre for Policy Studies, will be endorsed by anyone who has endured the vagaries of the London rental market, where a ‘cosy one-bed’ can be a garage with [...]
Australian Dollar to GBP – Could this be one to watch? January 24, 2020 Singapore Dollar Fears of the coronavirus which has been spreading from China have affected global market sentiment. This week in Singapore December consumer price inflation results beat expectations; with food, transport, communication, and education costs the highlights. Beating November’s 0.6 per cent and the prediction of 0.7 per cent, December’s 0.8 per cent result is in line with the Monetary Authority of Singapore [...]
Pension savers can boost their retirement pots and help businesses to grow by investing in venture capital February 5, 2020 The world is getting richer. Every day, we find ways to do things more efficiently — and when we do, those benefits diffuse across the country and throughout the world. But this diffusion isn’t always noticeable, evenly spread, or quick enough for many. For the economic system to maintain legitimacy, people need to believe that [...]
Meet Beam, the social enterprise crowdfunding training for homeless people December 12, 2019 Charitable giving is one of the hallmarks of the festive season. And with the weather getting colder at Christmas, it’s important to highlight the desperate situation facing London’s homeless population. Estimates vary, but it’s believed that roughly 170,000 people are homeless in the capital. The vast majority of these are living in homeless shelters, hostels, [...]
Which stock markets sold off the most over Q1 and how do valuations look? April 15, 2020 It’s been an incredibly tough start to the year for investors, with some market veterans describing it as one of the most challenging situations they’ve ever experienced. While markets have staged a recovery since late March, it was a crushing quarter as coronavirus (Covid-19) effectively shuttered the global economy, not to forget the immeasurable human [...]