New Lord Mayor’s very early commute November 6, 2013 ALDERMAN Fiona Woolf – the next Lord Mayor of the City of London – prepared for the Lord Mayor’s Show with a pitch black dawn rehearsal in the Square Mile yesterday morning. Tomorrow she will become the second female Lord Mayor in the post’s 800-year history.
WIEF Diary October 28, 2013 Olympic Village Tour The London 2012 Olympic Village has taken on new life as a showcase for Qatari investment in the UK. In alliance with real estate investment company Delancey, Qatari Diar – Qatar Investment Authority’s property investment company – bought the site in 2011 for £557m, with a promise to build 2,818 new homes [...]
City women honoured at awards dinner October 28, 2013 THE Capitalist never needs an excuse to celebrate the brightest female minds that contribute to London’s thriving business sector, but one was nonetheless provided last Thursday at the Women in the City’s Woman of Achievement award. At a celebration evening hosted by law firm Bryan Cave, talented female executives from across London and the Home [...]
City Matters: Celebrate the soft power underpinning London’s economic fundamentals October 27, 2013 OVER the past twelve months, we have seen the UK economy, London and the City move towards a healthier position. The UK economy expanded by 0.8 per cent in the third quarter, the IMF has significantly raised its growth forecast for 2013 as a whole, London businesses feel more optimistic than at any time since [...]
Saluting all those who served the country October 20, 2013 ALMOST 400 guests flocked to the Guildhall on Friday for the third Square Mile Salute banquet, hosted by Michelin-starred chefs Albert and Michel Roux Jr. With support from leading players in business and politics, including Lord Ashcroft and the spread-betting group CMC Markets, the event has grown into a hotly anticipated culinary masterpiece and a [...]
City Matters: Cementing ties with the Islamic world should be a key priority for London October 13, 2013 LATER this month, London will play host to the first World Islamic Economic Forum to be held outside the Islamic world. This singular event reflects the increasingly strong partnership that the UK wishes to build with the Islamic world, and also London’s role as a centre for Islamic finance – a global market worth around [...]
Grounding planes means grounding growth: We must act on airports now October 8, 2013 A SOLUTION to London’s airport capacity crisis is a national imperative. After years of indecision and inertia, we have got to act to support growth. Heathrow opened in March 1946, less than a year after the war, and has since grown to become the world’s third busiest airport. Yet in the time it took to [...]
A Woolf in Lord Mayor’s clothing September 30, 2013 CITY lawyer Fiona Woolf was yesterday appointed as the next Lord Mayor of London, marking only the second time a woman has been elected to the post in its 800-year history. Woolf, an energy partner at CMS Cameron McKenna and sheriff of the City from 2010-11, will take up her role at a traditional silent ceremony [...]
City Matters: A twenty-first century Silk Road between East and West is long overdue September 29, 2013 OVER two millennia ago, the opening of the Silk Road in Asia had a transformative effect on trading right across the world. This remarkable development played a crucial role in facilitating previously unimaginable exchanges of goods, services, ideas and even culture across borders. In our information age, new technology has – of course – revolutionised [...]
How Labour can deliver on its pledge and tackle London’s housing drought September 24, 2013 HAROLD Macmillan made his reputation – and became Prime Minister – after delivering on his pledge to build 300,000 houses a year in the early 1950s. As Ed Miliband made clear yesterday, when he promised that a Labour government would ensure that 200,000 new homes were built annually by 2020, we now need similar ambition. [...]