PERSONAL FINANCE NEWS February 2, 2011 SPACE INVADERS COST £66M Space invaders, houseguests who stay with friends and family for weeks at a time without paying rent, are causing havoc. More than 4.9m homeowners have been left counting the cost of houseguests who overstayed their welcome last year. Direct Line research shows that the space invaders caused £66m in damages to [...]
Poor Britons turn to pricey payday loans December 7, 2011 THE DIRE state of many Britons’ personal finances has been underlined by new research that shows 3.5m people are considering taking out payday loans over the next six months. Concern over personal debt has reached the highest level since insolvency body R3 began making records, it said yesterday as it warned of “zombie debtors” who [...]
Poor Britons turn to pricey payday loans December 7, 2011 THE DIRE state of many Britons’ personal finances has been underlined by new research that shows 3.5m people are considering taking out payday loans over the next six months. Concern over personal debt has reached the highest level since insolvency body R3 began making records, it said yesterday as it warned of “zombie debtors” who [...]
Rangers shoot for £20m junior market offering October 11, 2012 TROUBLED Scottish football club Rangers yesterday announced plans to raise up to £20m through a listing on London’s Alternative Investment Market as the team’s new owners seek to rebuild the business. Rangers has endured a disastrous year, with the club – who have won the league a record 54 times – declared insolvent and forced to restart life [...]
Everything Everywhere owners deny they are looking for a sale June 21, 2012 THE French and German owners of Britain’s largest mobile operator, Everything Everywhere, are not interested in selling and have enough cash to invest in the business, France Telecom’s chief executive said yesterday. Investment banking sources had told Reuters last week that former chief executive Tom Alexander approached private equity groups six months ago to gauge [...]
Avanti: Profitting from a giant leap in data use September 2, 2012 ON THE wall in the meeting room of Avanti’s London offices – just off Shoreditch high street – hangs a piece of A4 paper in a simple frame. There, in plain text, Avanti’s mission is set out: “To be the world leader in Ka band satcoms, make lots of money and have some fun.” Avanti [...]
Pressure on personal finances rises February 1, 2011 The proportion of people saying they “have no spare cash” has risen to 27 per cent, according to the latest consumer confidence survey, released today. This was six percentage points higher at the end of 2010 than a year earlier and the highest since the survey began in 2005, according to the Nielsen Company and [...]
UK still struggling to compete May 30, 2012 BRITAIN’S economy is less competitive than European rival Germany’s, and other English speaking nations like Australia, Canada and the USA, the IMD’s world competitiveness yearbook revealed today. High inflation, rising unemployment and a lack of entrepreneurial environment all counted against the UK, although cuts to corporation tax and gradual steps to reduce the budget deficit [...]
Wonga is set to offer small business loans May 7, 2012 CONTROVERSIAL payday lender Wonga has begun offering loans to small businesses which can be approved in just 15 minutes. The private equity-backed lender will offer firms loans of £3,000 to £10,000 for between one and 52 weeks. Interest rates will be fixed at between 0.3 and two per cent per week, depending on the level [...]
It isn’t just Diamond that missed Libor’s warning signs July 4, 2012 MICHAEL Fallon of the Treasury select committee voiced a question yesterday that must be on many people’s lips. After passing on Paul Tucker’s message from the Bank of England in October 2008, how did Bob Diamond manage to know so little for so long about the Libor manipulation at Barclays that followed? Diamond dodged, “I [...]