The City View: Wework’s Mathieu Proust on the future of the office September 1, 2020 Subscribe to The City View Podcast: Apple / Google / Spotify / RSS Today Andy Silvester steps in for Christian May, and talks to Wework’s UK boss Mathieu Proust. The property firm’s chief offers his opinions on the value of office space and flexibility, the future of London as a global hub and the outfit’s plans to rebound from a dire 2019. [...]
Social media’s failings have made regulation almost inevitable February 8, 2021 The GameStop saga has thrown light, once again, on the power of social media. Having dramatically increased the stock price of a loss-making video game retailer, the two-million strong subreddit r/WallStreetBets has shown that with enough will, a single group can take on even the powerful world of hedge funds–and make itself some money in [...]
Pound swings wildly after Boris Johnson steps up no-deal rhetoric October 16, 2020 The pound swung wildly and gave up its gains after Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the UK should prepare for a no-deal Brexit, amid mixed signals from the negotiating process. Sterling was trading as much as 0.3 per cent higher when Johnson started speaking. It then dropped, rose slightly, and fell again to last stand [...]
Shuttered Woodford fund to pay out £183m to investors next week August 20, 2020 Investors trapped in the failed Woodford Equity Income will receive a £183m payout next week, following the sale of a number of assets. Link Fund Solutions agreed a £224m deal to sell 18 healthcare stocks, representing around half the remaining fund’s assets in June to Acacia Research. The firm then offloaded the bargain stocks just [...]
The City View: Michael Hewson on problematic consumer spending growth May 17, 2022 Today Andy Silvester talks to Michael Hewson, Chief Market Analyst at CMC Markets. They unpick the latest wage and labour figures, analyse Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey’s comments at the Treasury select committee, go through inflation predictions for 2022, and discuss why current consumer spending growth in the US and UK will be problematic [...]
DEBATE: Should the social distancing restrictions on weddings be dropped? October 9, 2020 Should the social distancing restrictions on weddings be dropped? Mark Henriques, managing director of Cripps & Co and petitioner seeking an injunction against the government measures, says YES. In March, lockdown shattered the plans of the thousands of people set to marry this year. I have watched with dismay as a temporary upset, caused by [...]
A share in a housing nightmare? The problems with leasehold contracts and shared ownership July 10, 2019 The saga around leasehold contracts gets more complicated for buyers using the shared ownership scheme
Analysis: How worrying is the GameStop-Reddit mania? February 2, 2021 The second half of last week was a fascinating news cycle for financial newshounds and traders alike, as headlines were very much dominated by one story: GameStop. Global equities fell back 3.5 to 4 per cent last week, leaving them down slightly year-to-date, even though they did recover some of these losses yesterday. GameStop – [...]
Saga’s voyage of recovery interrupted by declining profits September 27, 2018 Retirement insurance and travel firm Saga this morning said it was making strong progress on its recovery despite reporting declining underlying before-tax profit. Underlying profit at the firm dropped 3.7 per cent to £106.8m – which was due to Saga investing heavily in its business and marketing, chief exec Lance Batchelor told City A.M. The firm's [...]
The bonus is on you: Santander’s recent saga highlights the problems with deferred rewards February 4, 2019 Star investment banker Andrea Orcel was about to take the top job at Santander. And then he wasn’t. It turns out that the bank hadn’t quite realised how expensive Orcel would be, resulting in an unprecedented U-turn, as the board announced that Santander wouldn’t be hiring him after all. While Jose Antonio Alvarez will continue [...]