British Steel is in the black for the first time since splitting with Tata January 25, 2017 British Steel is back in profit for the first time since its acquisition from private equity company Greybull Capital. Tata Steel sold its long products business, including the plants in Scunthorpe and mills on Teesside, to Greybull in June after months of talks. Now, seven months later, British Steel has ended its third quarter of 2016 in profit [...]
No insulation for this: Sig shares have plummeted after it warned on profits and its chief executive quit November 11, 2016 Shares in building materials company Sig plunged more than 20 per cent this morning, after it issued a profit warning and its chief executive suddenly stepped down. In a trading update this morning, the company said it expected pre-tax profit to fall between £75m and £80m in the full year – down from £87.4m it [...]
City firms look to take part in Saudi Arabia’s multi-billion pound transformation plan November 28, 2016 Leading City banking, law and project management firms are meeting in Saudi Arabia today as they weigh up whether to take part in the country's National Transformation Programme. The programme, which will reduce Saudi Arabia's dependence on oil and move towards a diverse economy by 2030, is expected to generate $267bn per year in business opportunities. [...]
Is Ireland Brexit-ready? Inside Dublin’s bid to win financial services power from London January 30, 2017 Riding the airport shuttle bus through Dublin’s financial services centre on a sunny January afternoon, and looking forward to a pint of Guinness at the journey’s end, the prospect of the City of London losing jobs to Ireland doesn’t seem too upsetting. Located to the east of the city on the River Liffey, the financial [...]
Construction PMI shows growth in all three sub-sectors – but only commercial building increases pace November 3, 2015 The UK's construction sector grew across all three sectors in October – but only commercial building increased the pace of growth compared with September. Markit PMI for the industry registered 58.8 in October, down from 59.9 in September but comfortably above the contraction threshold. This marks two-and-a-half years of sustained output growth. While the pace [...]
EU pushes for banking rules to be brought in line with the rest of the world November 23, 2016 The European Commission has today unveiled a slew of potential reforms designed to keep the banking sector propped up in the event of an economic downturn and to bring the EU industry more in line with the rest of the world. Included among the proposals are tweaks to capital requirements to make them more sensitive to [...]
This is what the property industry wants from the Autumn Statement November 18, 2016 The big day is almost here – Autumn Statement day. The housing crisis has been at the top of the political agenda for years, but successive governments have failed to get a handle on it. Chancellor Philip Hammond is promising new funding to help get Britain building, but the property industry wants a range of [...]
Gin is 2016’s trendiest drink, with sales growing in the UK and beyond December 8, 2016 There's no arguing that 2016 has left many of us needing a drink at the end of the day, and no one has benefited from that more than the UK's gin industry. British consumers drank 1.12bn gin and tonics in the last year, breaking the sector's £1bn sales mark for the first time ever six months [...]
Want to join Scotland’s £17bn data revolution? November 16, 2016 Picture the scenario: you're located in a leading UK technology centre such as Scotland with a data sector worth a healthy £17bn. You need skilled and qualified data professionals – but where do you find 'em? The good news is that Scottish data innovation centre, Data Lab, is offering 90 MSc places for 2016/17 across seven Scottish universities, [...]
Opinion: As house prices outstrip salaries, why are we still chasing the dream of homeownership? October 28, 2016 It’s over. Britain will no longer be a nation of homeowners. Now property sales are heading for an 80-year low and rentals are surpassing purchases for the first time since 1930, according to Countrywide figures released last week. To top it all off, prices have never been higher. In the good days (circa 1997 – [...]