Financial news

• Greece desperate for growth strategy as public mood darkens

  05-03-2017 17:54 via theguardian.com
  
  With debt repayments of €7bn due in July and default looming, Greek government hunts rescue funds to boost employment In the long and winding road of Greek debt drama, disappointment and hope have been the alternating emotions that every government has faced. With the nation’s crisis no nearer to being resolved than when it erupted seven years ago, negotiations with creditors at another critical juncture and Europe engulfed in uncertainty, the need for hope has never been greater.&ldq
  
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• John Lewis and Waitrose owner set to reduce staff bonus

  05-03-2017 17:49 via theguardian.com
  
  Partnership, which is owned by its staff, is expected to announce annual bonus of between 6% and 7% of salary, cut from 10%The owner of John Lewis and Waitrose is poised to cut the annual bonus it pays staff to the lowest level since the 1950s due to the pressure on retailers.The John Lewis Partnership, which is owned by its staff, is expected to announce a bonus of between 6% and 7% of workers’ annual salary. Continue reading...
  
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• Philip Green: Arcadia will double pension fund contributions

  05-03-2017 16:28 via theguardian.com
  
  Owner of Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and other retailers will increase payments to £50m a year, after deal reached over BHSSir Philip Green has agreed a deal to pump as much as £50m a year into the pension fund behind his fashion business, Arcadia, to plug a growing deficit, just days after reaching a settlement over the BHS pension scandal.Arcadia, which controls Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge, will double payments into its pension scheme from £25m a year to £5
  
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• The rise of biodynamic farming: a return to 'the way farmers farmed for millennia'

  05-03-2017 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Biodynamic foods are more nutritious than conventionally farmed crops – but critics are questioning biodynamic farming’s ability to feed the masses When John Chester, a filmmaker from California, quit his job to become a farmer, he didn’t do it out of a desire to “feed the world”. Instead, he says: “I’m trying to feed my neighbors – and if everyone did that, we would be able to replicate this.”He is referring to Apricot Lane Farms, a 213-acre
  
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• Budget 2017: Hammond to tell us the Brexit vote could have been worse

  05-03-2017 14:13 via theguardian.com
  
  Chancellor will say UK economy is in far better shape than forecast. What he won’t say is inflation rates rise faster for the poorWhen Philip Hammond stands up to give his budget on Wednesday, this is what you are likely to hear: economic growth has been, and will be, stronger than expected after the Brexit vote. Defying all the doomsayers who said a vote to leave could prompt a recession, consumers carried on spending and businesses continued to expand. The picture for the public finances
  
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• UK needs financial reserves in the tank for Brexit: Hammond - Reuters

  05-03-2017 13:46
  
  Reuters
  UK needs financial reserves in the tank for Brexit: Hammond
  Reuters
  FILE PHOTO: Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond leaves 11 Downing Street, London, January 31, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo. By William Schomberg and Paul Sandle | LONDON. LONDON Britain's finance minister Philip ...
  UK needs financial reserves in the tank for Brexit, says Chancellor Philip ...The Sydney Morning Herald
  UK needs financial reserves for Brexit: HammondTimes of Omanalle 168 n
  
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• UPDATE 1-UK needs financial reserves in the tank for Brexit - Hammond - Reuters

  05-03-2017 12:34
  
  UPDATE 1-UK needs financial reserves in the tank for Brexit - Hammond
  Reuters
  LONDON, March 5 Britain's finance minister Philip Hammond said he would not use better news on the country's big budget deficit to spend heavily because he needs to keep "reserves in the tank" for the impending divorce from the European Union.
  
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• Philip Hammond vows UK will fight back if it gets bad Brexit deal

  05-03-2017 12:06 via theguardian.com
  
  Chancellor tells EU that Britain won’t ‘slink off like a wounded animal’ if no trade agreement is struck during article 50 talksPhilip Hammond has sent a warning to Britain’s European partners that Britain will “fight back” and not “slink off like a wounded animal” if it does not get the Brexit deal it wants. In combative language ahead of triggering the article 50 negotiations on terms of withdrawal, the chancellor said Britain would “do wha
  
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• When people introduced UK Sinha as SBI chief! - Financial Express

  05-03-2017 11:51
  
  Financial Express
  When people introduced UK Sinha as SBI chief!
  Financial Express
  Capital markets watchdog SEBI may be among India's most powerful regulators today but there was a time when people used to introduce its former chief U K Sinha as Chairman of SBI -- a similar sounding acronym but of State Bank of India. By: PTI | New ...en meer »
  
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• Bad news for online advertisers – you’ve been ’ad | John Naughton

  05-03-2017 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Precision marketing through digital and social media aims to open our hearts and wallets. If onlyThere is, alas, no such thing as a free lunch. The trouble with digital technology, though, is that for a long time it encouraged us to believe that this law of nature had been suspended. Take email as an example. In the old days, if you wanted to send a friend a postcard saying: “Just thinking of you”, you had to find a postcard and a pen, write the message, find a stamp and walk to a po
  
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• SSE customers charged up to £33,000 a day by faulty smart meters

  05-03-2017 09:59
  
  Energy supplier apologises and launches investigation into devices after customers tweet company about soaring billsShocked customers of a major energy company have received an apology after malfunctioning smart meters said they would be charged up to £33,000 for one day’s power. SSE, one of the “big six”, said it had launched an urgent investigation into the errant devices, one of which told a customer they had exceeded their daily budget by nearly 3m%.Continue reading..
  
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• The oil deal, the disgraced former minister, and $800m paid via a UK bank

  05-03-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Major investigation provokes concerns that City regulators waved through deal at heart of court caseBritain’s commitment to tackling high-end money laundering through the City of London is under serious scrutiny after it emerged that regulators appear to have waved through an $800m bank transfer to a convicted criminal as the proceeds from one of the most corrupt deals in the history of the oil industry.A joint investigation by the Observer and journalists from Finance Uncovered, a non-pro
  
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• Snap and Sorrell are wrong: powerful bosses can become untouchable insiders

  05-03-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  However seductive‘unconventional corporate governance’ sounds, disasters like Polly Peck and Mirror Group remind us of the perils of an unchecked executiveIs there anyone who thinks Snap Inc, the firm behind Snapchat, was justified in issuing shares with zero voting rights? To most minds, Snap’s innovation undermined the whole concept of a shareholding carrying rights of ownership. If a shareholder can’t vote on corporate resolutions, like the appointment of directors and
  
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• BA’s answer to passengers stranded in a corridor for seven hours? Ignore them

  05-03-2017 08:00
  
  They were told their connecting flight was cancelled due to bad weather … but friends made the journey with no problemCan you please help resolve a dispute we have with British Airways. My parents booked a cruise departing from Barcelona in October. They were due to fly from Glasgow, changing at Heathrow. But when they arrived at Heathrow they were told they had missed the connection. They and seven other passengers were left in an airport corridor for seven-and-a-half hours before being
  
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• Small Firms' Confidence in UK Plummets | Financial Tribune - Financial Tribune

  05-03-2017 01:53
  
  Financial Tribune
  Small Firms' Confidence in UK Plummets | Financial Tribune
  Financial Tribune
  Britain's smaller companies are hoarding cash and cutting investment, bankers say, a sign of business confidence starting to wobble as the government sets off ...en meer »
  
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• Chancellor Philip Hammond to receive £12billion pre-Budget boost

  05-03-2017 01:11 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  CHANCELLOR Philip Hammond could be handed a £12billion windfall by the Office For Budget Responsibility this week, according to the EY ITEM Club think tank.
  
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• Memo to bosses: expect zero loyalty from your zero-hours workers | Barbara Ellen

  05-03-2017 01:05 via theguardian.com
  
  As the gig economy reaches new heights, and DPD drivers reveal its downsides, employers should beware of the tables turningBad news first. According to the latest figures, there are now 910,000 people on zero-hours contracts, representing a record high. More positively, the think-tank Resolution notes that the pace of growth for zero-hours contracts slowed rapidly in the second half of 2016, due to a combination of factors, including rising public awareness, employers fearing that Brexit could l
  
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• The Observer view on the Snap flotation | Observer editorial

  05-03-2017 01:04 via theguardian.com
  
  The company’s staggering $28bn valuation sends an instant message that capitalism needs major reformIf Snap were a country, it would make it into the largest 100 economies in the world. The company, which owns the instant messaging app Snapchat, floated on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday and is now valued at more than $28bn. It is an eyewatering sum for a company started just five years ago by two founders, still in their 20s, and which lost $514m last year alone.Snap’s valua
  
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• £220,000: the price super-rich will pay to keep their privacy

  05-03-2017 01:04
  
  Call for greater transparency as wealthy foreigners fork out to avoid registering London propertiesMore than 200 wealthy foreigners are choosing to pay £218,200 a year in tax rather than declare which of London’s £20m-plus mega-mansions they own.The government introduced a special annual tax on homes owned via “non-natural persons” such as offshore companies in 2013, to crack down on “dirty money” used to secretly buy up luxury homes. But figures from HM
  
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• Uber is smart, simple and seductive. But should we still be using it?

  05-03-2017 01:03 via theguardian.com
  
  After court cases and footage of its angry boss, the minicab app is losing its shineOver recent months I’ve developed a conflicted relationship with my Uber app. On the one hand, I’ve watched with growing unease as the company has been plagued by revelation after revelation, raising questions about how it does business. There’s the fundamental question about Uber’s relationship with its drivers: are they self-employed, as it claims, or is Uber taking advantage of people w
  
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• Newly launched ClearBank approached about a potential flotation

  05-03-2017 01:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  CLEARBANK, which launched last week and is Britain’s first new clearing bank in 250 years, has been approached by investment bankers about a potential flotation, founder Nick Ogden says.
  
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• Is G4S trying to run for results cover on budget day?

  05-03-2017 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Security firm is set to release results on budget day, even though this tired tactic only increases City interestThe ability of G4S to turn its security work into total farce – particularly just before it makes announcements to the City – has wowed the Square Mile for years.Few tire of tales of the firm’s pre-results gaffes, which most memorably included a prisoner tricking his G4S guards into tagging his prosthetic leg, thereby allowing him to skip his curfew by detaching the
  
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• Greg Clark must protect UK jobs during takeover of GM, says Geoff Ho

  05-03-2017 01:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  PEUGEOT and Citroën owner PSA is set to announce the takeover of General Motors European operations, which for Business Secretary Greg Clark, means that the time has come for him to back up all his talk of protecting jobs at Vauxhall.
  
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• Gordon Brown’s tax raid finally signals the death of defined benefit pensions

  05-03-2017 01:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Defined benefit pension schemes could start to disappear entirely from the private sector within five years, according to former pensions minister Ros Altmann.
  
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• Five-minute guide to the new 'death tax' coming into force next May

  05-03-2017 01:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  GRIEVING families will soon be forced to pay a new “death tax” that could cost them many thousands of pounds.
  
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• City news: Morrisons, General Motors and crowdfunding

  05-03-2017 01:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  MORRISONS chief executive Dave Potts will say that the supermarket giant’s recovery is gaining momentum and will reward investors for their patience with an increased dividend at its results on Thursday.
  
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• Cineworld expecting Roguishly good-looking figures, with full year pre-tax profits up 7%

  05-03-2017 01:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  BLOCKBUSTERS such as Star Wars: Rogue One helped draw record numbers to Cineworld and will send its full year pre-tax profits up 7 per cent to £107million, analysts say.
  
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• Buy-to-let landlords face huge tax increase from new law

  05-03-2017 01:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  A time bomb has been placed under the once thriving buy-to-let market and is primed to explode in exactly one month.
  
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