UK investor faith in equities grows, bringing 10 months of outflows to an end January 11, 2017 UK investors regained some faith in equities in November as 10 months of outflows came to an end, new figures out today show. Total funds under management totalled £1 trillion during the month, with net retail fund sales of £1.5bn, up from £595m in October. Total sales of equity funds came in at £583m, the [...]
Forget Brexit: London and Belgium are collaborating on fintech January 11, 2017 London's world-leading fintech sector is forging ahead despite Brexit with closer ties to counterparts in Belgium, the heart of European government. Belgium's finance minister Johan Van Overtveldt and a delegation of fintech experts are in London to build closer ties with the city and launch a new platform for fostering collaboration between startups and finance firms. "Brexit [...]
Ways to withstand and exploit market volatility in private investor portfolios January 11, 2017 How concerned should private investors be about on-going market volatility? After all, the Brexit and Trump votes and the Italian referendum not only caused immediate turmoil in global stockmarkets, they set the stage for uncertainty well into next year and even beyond. As conditions become more challenging, investors will want to review their portfolio make-up [...]
City PM Unregulated: Notes on (surviving) a scandal January 11, 2017 For our first podcast of 2017, we're joined by PR guru Paul Blanchard to discuss scandals – both avoiding and surviving them. He talks about what to do if you find yourself faced with the increasingly common scenario of a social media storm, and why sometimes the best course of action is to do nothing [...]
Internal crowdsourcing: how to improve business productivity like Facebook January 11, 2017 The UK's productivity crisis is one of the greatest challenges facing its businesses. The latest ONS figures show the UK’s quarterly productivity growth increased by just 0.4 per cent and still remains well below the 1994 to 2007 average, when productivity was at a high. With little sign of the crisis abating, how can organisational [...]
Moo.la’s Gemma Godfrey on how she made it: “It’s action that makes the difference” January 11, 2017 Gemma Godfrey is the founder of Moo.la, a digital investment service, as well as a quantum physicist, a new mum – and in December she was chosen to appear on Celebrity Apprentice US alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. You have a pretty broad range of skills and experience. How did you know what the right direction was [...]
City Moves for 11 January 2017 | Who’s switching jobs January 11, 2017 Wilton & Bain Erin Callaghan has joined Wilton & Bain as a Partner in the firm’s technology practice. Erin has over 10 years’ experience in executive recruitment and has built a track record of delivering senior assignments in the international technology sector, including FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies as well as VC or private equity [...]
Buy-to-lose? With new restrictions on buy-to-let mortgages and the introduction of other punitive measures in 2017, is there any value left in letting for mortgaged landlords? January 11, 2017 As we enter 2017, the tide has truly turned against Britain’s buy-to-let landlords. First, George Osborne discouraged people from buying a second residential property by imposing extra stamp duty of 3 per cent. Now, the Bank of England is demanding that mortgage lenders “stress test” loans to landlords. Since 1 January, the Bank’s Prudential Regulation [...]
Sky defends increases in TV prices saying coverage has been “completely transformed” since 2010 January 10, 2017 The cost of satellite television has rocketed by an average of 50 per cent since 2010, four times the rate of inflation and twice as fast as rail fares have increased over the same period. Free-to-air satellite firm Freesat has urged rail users, angry at January fare hikes, to check the cost of their Sky [...]
UK’s pension lifeboat gets lower in the water as deficits soar in December January 10, 2017 Pension shortfalls grew at a rate of nearly £1bn a day during December, figures released by the UK's pension lifeboat have revealed. The Pension Protection Fund (PPF), into which defined benefit pension schemes fall upon corporate insolvency, calculated an aggregate deficit for the 5,794 schemes covered of £224bn at the end of December. The shortfall grew [...]
