Balfour Beatty swings to loss as coronavirus shuts down construction in UK August 12, 2020 Shares in construction firm Balfour Beatty fell 4.4 per cent this morning after the company posted a £24m loss for the first half. The FTSE 250 firm said that the coronavirus pandemic, which hampered work at its building sites, was behind the loss. The figures Balfour Beatty swung from a £64m underlying profit for the [...]
Rolls-Royce betting small is beautiful when it comes to UK nuclear power January 9, 2021 For many, nuclear power stations are eyesores – great slabs of gun-metal grey cluttering up the UK’s coastlines. But that could be about to change. Last year FTSE 100 blue-bloods Rolls-Royce announced it was planning on building a fleet of 16 so-called “small modular reactors” (SMRs) in a move that would shake up the UK’s [...]
Rishi Sunak admits current UK borrowing is “not sustainable” November 26, 2020 Rishi Sunak has conceded that the current projections for UK borrowing are “obviously not sustainable”, after the chancellor yesterday unveiled huge economic interventions as part of his winter Spending Review. Sunak yesterday lifted total government spending on the Covid response to £280bn, as he vouched his commitment to “jobs, businesses and public services”. The chancellor [...]
TfL boss that oversaw Crossrail and Garden Bridge fiascos set for an honour October 9, 2020 A controversial former TfL boss appears to be in line for an honour, after Sadiq Khan tweeted his congratulations before the tweet was hastily removed. The Queen’s birthday honours list will be be announced tonight, however it appears the mayor of London jumped the gun this morning by announcing that former TfL commissioner Mike Brown [...]
Switzerland heads for Brexit-like EU clash with €227bn at stake from today May 26, 2021 From today, Swiss medical-technology companies will no longer be allowed to export duty-free to the European Union as Bern and Brussels failed to agree to a long-anticipated political treaty that would cover trade between the two countries. The goods-trading relationship at risk is worth $278bn, with medical-technology companies being the latest casualty of a deteriorating [...]
G7: What was agreed at the 2021 Cornwall summit on vaccines to climate change June 13, 2021 The 2021 G7 summit wrapped up today, after three days of meetings between leaders of the world’s richest democracies on Covid vaccines, the globe’s economic recovery and the environment. Amongst some occasional drama around Brexit and the UK-EU relationship, the seven leaders – from the US, UK, Canada, Italy, France, Japan and Germany – came [...]
Investing in undervalued care sector is complex and challenging, warns Advinia’s chairman April 21, 2021 Over the past decade, investors and private equity firms have piled into private health and social care, sensing the potential for high returns. However, as the sector is beset with financial stress brought on by the global financial crisis following the pandemic, a range of healthcare providers, including HC-One, the UK’s largest, have started to [...]
Government agrees £825m loan to finish Crossrail December 1, 2020 The government has agreed a £825m loan to finance the completion Crossrail train link, Grant Shapps today announced. Writing on Twitter, Shapps said that the loan was a “fair dal for taxpayers across the UK”. The loan takes the total cost of the project, which has been plagued by difficulties over its lifespan, to £18.6bn. [...]
Why China’s electric vehicle market is at full throttle April 9, 2021 We get under the bonnet and look at what’s driving growth in China’s electric vehicle market After a dip in sales in 2019 and the impact of the pandemic in early 2020, the market for electric vehicles (EVs) in China is recovering strongly. Among the factors driving this acceleration in sales is the combination of [...]
Crossrail failed to carry out survey work on historic Soho venue despite ‘high risk’ to punters December 16, 2020 Crossrail failed to carry out survey work on a historic cellar bar in Soho despite receiving warnings from its own contractors that weak vaults posed a “high residual risk” to punters. The report, which was carried out in 2016 by consultants WSP and has been seen by City A.M., says that the vaults in the [...]