ANGELS June 17, 2010 Q.My small business needs financing – how do I find an angel investor and what kind of businesses do they fund? A. With so much uncertainty lingering in the markets, it is a difficult time to find investment. But since last summer, activity has picked up among angel investors – wealthy individuals who invest in [...]
Time for an inquiry into tax system June 13, 2010 THERE are two conflicting trends right now in British economic policy: one is reassuring and invigorating; the other negative and deeply depressing. Both will help determine how successful and prosperous the UK will be over the next few years. I am increasingly optimistic about the immediate, urgent crisis facing Britain – the desperate need to [...]
THE BIG SQUEEZE June 22, 2010 Chancellor says steep hike in VAT to 20pc is unavoidable Banks relieved as £2bn levy is more lenient than expected Public sector braced for massive job losses as spending slashed Higher rate of CGT increased to 28pc – lower than feared Income tax break worth £200 for low and middle earners Headline rate of corporation [...]
THE BIG SQUEEZE June 22, 2010 Chancellor says steep hike in VAT to 20pc is unavoidable Banks relieved as £2bn levy is more lenient than expected Public sector braced for massive job losses as spending slashed Higher rate of CGT increased to 28pc – lower than feared Income tax break worth £200 for low and middle earners Headline rate of corporation [...]
Standard Life boosted by a return to risk April 29, 2010 STANDARD Life said high street savers’ appetite for equities and fixed income would continue to return this year as it beat market expectations to deliver a 30 per cent rise in sales. The Edinburgh-based insurer posted first quarter sales of £4.6bn, nearly £1bn more than analysts expected. Other stocks in the sector were buoyed as [...]
Iceland sees the first anti-bailout revolt January 5, 2010 SOMEONE should give Gordon Brown a copy of John Maynard Keynes’ The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Published in 1919, it addressed post-war Germany – but the book is uncannily relevant to the situation in today’s Iceland, explaining how crippling reparations enforced by powerful foreign nations on an unwilling population are counter-productive. Iceland – unlike [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS April 22, 2010 Deloitte Timothy Mahapatra has taken up a new role at the business advisory firm as managing director of the corporate finance practice. A member of the firm’s executive, Mahapatra has over 15 years of corporate finance experience and was previously leader of Deloitte’s mergers and acquisitions programme. He succeeds Aidan Birkett, who was appointed as [...]
Swiss to treat bonuses as a taxable profit April 28, 2010 Switzerland unveiled plans to make bankers’ bonuses less tax-friendly, aiming to appease political parties calling for pay restraint and win backing for a deal ending a US tax case against UBS. The Social Democrats, who could make or break UBS’s US tax deal in a parliamentary vote in June, said the proposed measures, to apply [...]
What now? Prepare for the next crisis July 28, 2010 PREDICTING the future can be a notoriously tricky business. If people declare with certainty that things will happen, they often don’t. While things that no one saw coming have a horrible habit of actually happening. The Asian financial crisis in 1997 came as everyone was talking about an “Asian economic miracle”, while the most recent [...]
Osborne plans shake-up of bank sector April 28, 2010 THE TORIES will begin the “most radical overhaul” of the banking system in a generation if they are elected next week, George Osborne said yesterday. Speaking to an audience at the Institute of Directors yesterday, the shadow chancellor said he would start dismantling the Financial Services Authority (FSA) “within months” of taking office, replacing it [...]