Financial news

• New Tata Steel scheme secures pensions for 130,000 workers

  11-08-2017 19:53 via theguardian.com
  Arrangement offering ‘more sustainable outcomes’ expected to clear way for merger of European business with ThyssenKruppTata Steel has reached an agreement over its £15bn pension scheme, in a move that the pensions regulator hopes will help secure jobs at the Indian-owned company that employs more than 8,000 people across the UK.The 130,000 members of the scheme – one of the UK’s largest – are to be contacted by the trustees to be told they will have an option
  
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• Trump's North Korea rhetoric spikes US 'fear index' to top level since election

  11-08-2017 19:50 via theguardian.com
  Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang rattle stock market volatility measure and unnerve investors A US stock market gauge known as the “fear index” has spiked to its highest level since Donald Trump was elected president in a sign that his brinkmanship with North Korea is starting to unnerve investors.The Vix index has been at record lows in recent weeks but has been rattled by the remarks Trump has been making about North Korea. Continue reading...
  
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• Vanishing app: Snapchat struggles as Facebook bites back

  11-08-2017 19:40 via theguardian.com
  Losses are steep and user growth is anaemic leaving investors fearful the latest ‘new Facebook’ has run out of steamIs Snapchat – the social media app famous for its disappearing messages – in danger of doing a vanishing act of its own? It’s a question some are asking after investors turned on the company again this week following a second set of poor results which have turned a once-hot tech company into a stock market casualty.The losses alone were steep. Snapchat
  
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• Box office massacre: how Hollywood flopped this summer

  11-08-2017 18:14 via theguardian.com
  A string of disappointing movies – both critically and commercially – have led to damaging financial implications. So what exactly went wrong?We’re coming to the end of a particularly chilly summer in Hollywood. It’s been a brutal week for movie theater chains as they ready their quarterly earnings reports for shareholders and warn those investors that they’re not going to like what they see. The AMC theater chain is hemorrhaging money, with a 27% decrease in value
  
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• Sky faces paying extra £1.8bn for Premier League broadcast rights

  11-08-2017 18:10 via theguardian.com
  Likely competition from Amazon could force Sky to pay £600m more each year to retain its lion’s share of football fixturesSky could be forced to pay an extra £600m annually to retain the lion’s share of Premier League matches when the next rights auction launches this year, with Amazon emerging as a potential competitor for the biggest prize in UK sport broadcasting. Google, Apple, Facebook and Netflix are other possible rivals for Britain’s most valuable sports rig
  
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• Nationwide sounds note of caution over lending in run-up to Brexit

  11-08-2017 18:06 via theguardian.com
  Chief executive says public less optimistic about economy and lenders should balance credit supply with affordabilityNationwide Building Society has sounded a note of caution about the financial sector’s approach to lending in the run-up to Brexit.Joe Garner, its chief executive, said the society’s research showed customers did not expect the UK’s exit from the EU to change the way they could borrow from banks and building societies. Continue reading...
  
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• Let’s move to Preston, Lancashire: parched peas and plenty of trains

  11-08-2017 17:30 via theguardian.com
  The city’s had a few grim years – but things are looking upWhat’s going for it? This city, like so many, has seen the proverbial hit the fan. When I popped by in 2011, austerity was biting. Shops were being boarded up. Big investments were collapsing. Like every other council, Preston’s was facing nasty choices. Six years on, although peace, love and prosperity do not reign on its streets, interesting things are bubbling up. The council is experimenting with co-ops, and k
  
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• Brexit pain for holidaymakers as pound expected to fall further against euro

  11-08-2017 17:18 via theguardian.com
  Investment bank Morgan Stanley predicts pound-euro parity by early next yearBritish holidaymakers should brace themselves for more Brexit pain when they change their pounds into euros, with a leading investment bank forecasting the currencies are on the way to parity.Sterling is trading at €1.09 after collapsing from €1.31 on the day before the UK voted to quit the European Union in June 2016. Continue reading...
  
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• Wilko warns nearly 4,000 staff could lose jobs

  11-08-2017 15:27 via theguardian.com
  Homeware retailer is third British high street chain after Sainsbury’s and Asda to announce redundancy plansWilko, the high street homewares and households goods chain, has warned almost 4,000 of its employees that they could lose their jobs in a shake-up that will strip out a layer of management.The potential job losses cap a brutal week for British retail workers, with Asda placing 3,257 employees into consultation and Sainsbury’s announcing plans to axe more than 1,000 head office
  
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• Surgery must be a core part of health care – even in the poorest countries

  11-08-2017 15:19 via theguardian.com
  Surgery-treatable conditions kill more people than TB, Malaria and AIDS combined - how can access to surgery be improved in developing countries?
  The world has made tremendous progress in dealing with many of the health challenges that have global impact – for example, maternal and infant mortality rates have been massively reduced and there’s been promising advances in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. But there is one area that the global health community has ove
  
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• Global markets slide as political tensions persist - as it happened

  11-08-2017 14:42 via theguardian.com
  European and Asian markets follow Wall Street lower after President Trump issues another provocative warning to North KoreaTrump ramps up North Korea threatsUS military is ‘locked and loaded’, Trump tweetsWilko warns 4,000 UK jobs at riskTata Steel signs new pension deal for workers 1.42pm BSTUS inflation rose to 1.7% in July from 1.6% in June. Economists had forecast a bigger rise, to 1.8%.US inflation edging up, but still below 2% target. Weaker dollar, rising commodity prices and
  
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• Consumer spending squeeze 'to hit UK financial services' - Re:locate Magazine

  11-08-2017 13:06
  Re:locate Magazine
  Consumer spending squeeze 'to hit UK financial services'
  Re:locate Magazine
  British financial services are expected to encounter a tough time in 2018 a forecast by an independent economic forecaster has found, drops in mortgages and business lending is expected to play a part. Consumer spending in the UK set to tighten in 2018.
  
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• UK opponents of Brexit mull new centrist political party - Financial Post

  11-08-2017 12:32
  UK opponents of Brexit mull new centrist political party
  Financial Post
  LONDON — Opponents of Britain's departure from the European Union are floating the idea of setting up a new anti-Brexit political party. James Chapman, a former aide to Brexit Secretary David Davis, has become an outspoken critic of Britain's looming ...en meer »
  
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• Barcelona adds Segway ban to curbs on tourism

  11-08-2017 12:27 via theguardian.com
  As anti-tourist sentiment grows across Europe, the Catalan capital’s move is applauded by residents, with a new protest planned for the seaside neighbourhoodIt was once dubbed the capital of cool, but these days visitors to Barcelona can expect a quite frosty welcome as the city’s love affair with tourism comes to a bitter end, with hooded youths spraying a tourist bus with slogans, and strike chaos at the city’s airport. On Wednesday, Segway tours and electric scooters were ba
  
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• Amazon to take on Ticketmaster in lucrative ticketing market, report says

  11-08-2017 10:55 via theguardian.com
  World’s largest retailer sees US market as ripe for the taking, following consumer dislike for fees and sports teams desire to boost merchandise salesAmazon’s next big thing is reportedly to be ticket sales, as the retail giant looks to take on the dominance of Ticketmaster, partnering with venue owners in the US.According to four sources talking to Reuters, Amazon see the lucrative US ticketing market as ripe for attack. Consumers dislike ticket fees, and venue owners, sports league
  
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• UK financial services set for slowdown - FT Adviser

  11-08-2017 10:36
  FT Adviser
  UK financial services set for slowdown
  FT Adviser
  UK financial services should brace itself for a less than buoyant near-term future, according to a closely watched barometer, as lending activity falters due to a combination of stagnant wages and higher inflation. Lending - and the interest charged on ...
  
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• Sainsbury’s says no to replacement for faulty Hotel Chocolat gift card

  11-08-2017 08:01 via theguardian.com
  My friend bought the voucher from the supermarket but it didn’t workI was given a £25 Hotel Chocolat gift voucher by a friend who bought it from Sainsbury’s. When I tried to use it, the card could not be activated. A Hotel Chocolat store manager spent 15 minutes swiping it through machines then phoned the head office. He was told the card would have to be returned. But Sainsbury’s declared the card had been activated so there was nothing it could do. My friend’s loc
  
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• Turnchapel Mews – in pictures

  11-08-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Muse on this: a ‘Tardis-like’ five-bedroom apartment in the block where Roald Dahl wrote The Witches could cast a spell on wannabe writersContinue reading...
  
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• Roald Dahl's former mews house – in pictures

  11-08-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  This ‘Tardis-like’ five-bedroom apartment where the author wrote The Witches could cast a spell on wannabe writersContinue reading...
  
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• Jacques Delors foresaw the perils of austerity. How we need his wisdom now | Mark Seddon

  11-08-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  At the EU he was a lone voice against hyper-globalisation and its rust-belt economics. The era of Brexit and Trump needs his internationalist spirit• Mark Seddon is a former UN correspondent for Al-Jazeera English, and speechwriter for the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moonDuring the darkest days of Thatcher’s de-industrialising, high unemployment, beggar-thy-neighbour dystopia of the early 1980s, there was one European leader who offered hope to the beleaguered ranks of industrial work
  
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• Hiring refugees: 'we have an amazing wealth of talent on our hands'

  11-08-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Finding work as a migrant comes with huge challenges, even for the highly skilled – but there are entrepreneurs offering a lifelineLaughing with customers one baking hot Saturday last month, while encouraging them to taste chai teas from a market stall in Forest Hill, south-east London, marked a momentous occasion for Ahmed Yousefi*. After a long battle to find employment, it was the Iranian refugee’s first day of work since arriving in the UK eight months ago. “I really enjoye
  
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• News Corp posts $817m loss after falls in value of newspaper and pay TV assets

  11-08-2017 07:08 via theguardian.com
  Revenue of $8.14bn is down 2% from $8.29bn last year due to lower print advertising revenue and foreign currency fluctuationsRupert Murdoch’s News Corp has posted an $817m financial year loss on the back of dramatic falls in the value of newspapers in the UK and Australia and write downs at Australian pay TV platform Foxtel.Revenue was $8.14bn, down 2% from $8.29bn last year, due to lower print advertising revenue and foreign currency fluctuations, the New York-based company said. Continue
  
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• Mass tourism is at a tipping point – but we’re all part of the problem | Martin Kettle

  11-08-2017 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Unless we rethink our holiday choices, the damage and destruction to global beauty spots can only growNearly 30 years ago, researching for a Guardian series on global population pressures, I interviewed the zoologist Desmond Morris. During that interview, Morris said something that was hard to forget. “We have to recognise,” he said, “that human beings may be becoming an infestation on the planet.” Related: Only governments can stem the tide of tourism sweeping the g
  
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• For the first time ever I am defending banks. Here’s why | John Harris

  11-08-2017 07:00 via theguardian.com
  What have the City fat cats who caused the crash and got away scot free ever done for us? We’ll find out when Brexit forces them – and their taxes – abroadThe reasons why 17.4 million British people trooped to the polling stations last summer and put their crosses in the leave box have been endlessly analysed, and often crudely carved in half – as if some Brexit supporters were angry about immigration and others fixated on questions of sovereignty, and that was pretty muc
  
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• 'Hold my avocado': can you pick the real millennial catchphrases? - quiz

  11-08-2017 05:43 via theguardian.com
  Time magazine has been mocked for suggesting that ‘hold my avocado’ is the new viral millennial catchphrase. Can you sort fact from fiction? Time magazine has been laughed at on Twitter for suggesting that the phrase “hold my avocado” is the new viral millennial catchphrase. The magazine said the sentence was so powerful because it “takes advantage of the ‘hold my beer’ dialogue construction that’s become an internet joke to represent how politicia
  
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• Google cancels staff meeting after Gamergate-style attack on employees

  11-08-2017 04:06 via theguardian.com
  Firing of James Damore, engineer behind controversial diversity memo, sparks ire from ‘alt-right’ reminiscent of 2014 Gamergate harassment campaign
  Google cancelled a company-wide meeting on Thursday after several of its employees became targets of a Gamergate-style campaign of harassment by internet trolls angered by the firing of an engineer who had written a controversial memo about diversity.
  “We had hoped to have a frank, open discussion today as we always do to bring us t
  
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• Battle for power at Uber as investor sues ex-CEO Travis Kalanick alleging fraud

  11-08-2017 01:34 via theguardian.com
  Benchmark Capital accuses Travis Kalanick of fraud to ‘increase his power over Uber for his own selfish ends’ as former CEO calls the case ‘riddles with lies’ Travis Kalanick is being sued by one of Uber’s largest investors, Benchmark Capital, which accuses the former chief executive of engaging in fraud in order to “increase his power over Uber for his own selfish ends”.The Benchmark complaint exposes an ugly battle for power at the top of the nearly $7
  
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• Men from poor families twice as likely to be single, IFS study finds

  11-08-2017 01:01 via theguardian.com
  One in three men from disadvantaged backgrounds are single at age of 42, compared with one in seven from rich familiesMiddle-aged men from disadvantaged backgrounds are twice as likely to be single as those from rich families, according to a new study that highlights the lack of social mobility in Britain.Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that men’s marriage prospects are linked to their upbringing, and that the disparity between those from well-off and poor families has w
  
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