Is Warren Buffett’s U-turn on airlines a nod to his value investing past? January 6, 2017 | City Talk Warren Buffett, the investment billionaire, has been pretty rude about the aviation sector. As the Sage of Omaha unambiguously put it in a 2002 interview: “If a capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk back in the early 1900s, he should have shot Orville Wright. He would have saved his progeny money.” Buffett went on to [...]
Royal Mail pensions closure: Unions warn on strikes if they disagree with plans January 5, 2017 Royal Mail today revealed plans to scrap its mammoth pension scheme that serves 90,000 postal workers. The former state-owned firm said the current final salary surplus would run out in 2018 and unless changes were implemented, the bill for servicing the scheme could run to over £1bn a year – a level it said “would [...]
Three important investment lessons to take from 2016 January 5, 2017 Did anybody anywhere in the world put an accumulator bet on the UK voting to leave the European Union, Donald Trump winning the US presidential election and Leicester City winning the Premier League? The bookmakers believe not and you’d think they might have noticed – after all, these events were considered so unlikely that [...]
Pensions Insurance Corporation picks up GKN scheme in £190m deal as engineer offloads liabilities January 5, 2017 Engineering giant GKN has shaken up its pension scheme and offloaded pension liabilities to a specialist insurer in a deal worth £190m. Pension aggregator Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) will take on 20 per cent of the liabilities of the scheme in a pension buyout of specific members. Read more: UK firms to ditch £30bn of pension liabilities in [...]
Three important investment lessons to take from 2016 January 5, 2017 Did anybody anywhere in the world put an accumulator bet on the UK voting to leave the European Union, Donald Trump winning the US presidential election and Leicester City winning the Premier League? The bookmakers believe not and you’d think they might have noticed – after all, these events were considered so unlikely that just [...]
Equity crowdfunding’s leading founders predict what’s in store for the sector in 2017 January 5, 2017 Equity crowdfunding will look even more grown up by Christmas 2017. More regulation is coming to the sector: the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has said it’ll consult this year on new rules, in a bid to improve protection for retail investors and increase transparency around financial promotions. Read more: The FCA is cracking down on [...]
£30bn in the pipeline: This is the year UK firms will cut pension schemes loose January 4, 2017 Britain's companies will shift sky-rocketing pension liabilities from their balance sheets this year, experts have predicted. With defined benefit pension schemes at record year-end levels, 2017 will be year to de-risk and UK plc is keen to take advantage of the improved affordability of shifting scheme risk to the insurance, according to Willis Towers Watson (WTW). Read more: As pension [...]
Resolutions for your money: Experts give their personal finance tips for 2017 January 4, 2017 After the gift giving, sales shopping and other excesses of the festive season, many of us aspire to start the New Year with tighter belts. According to research by Masthaven, 78 per cent of Brits intend to save over the next 12 months, with 34 per cent of them planning to squirrel away more than they [...]
Pension deficits hit a record year-end high as experts warn on implications January 3, 2017 Britain's pension gap almost doubled during 2016 to the highest ever year-end level, according to data released today. The aggregate deficit of defined benefit pension schemes leapt to £434bn, according to JLT Employee Benefits, up from £233bn, 12 months before. Although deficits have pared back from all-time highs of over £500bn in August, experts predicted bumper pension [...]
Volkswagen shares are in pole position for a 2017 comeback January 3, 2017 Time to take down the stockings, tuck away the ornaments and get shopping! Because as any bargain-hunter knows, the disappointment that comes from not getting what you want under the tree is easily forgotten by trading up for something better in the January sales. That may be the hope of VW chief executive Matthias Mueller [...]
