Financial news

• As Sports Direct chases dying stores, JD wins 'athleisure' race

  14-01-2019 22:05 via theguardian.com
  Mike Ashley’s obsession with Debenhams means Sports Direct shares have dived as he loses out in sports retail sectorCompare and contrast. One of the UK’s sporting goods retailers, Sports Direct, seems to want to act as undertaker to the UK’s department store sector. The other big player, JD Sports, is following a simpler plan to sell expensive branded trainers and “athleisure” garments to more people in more places. There are no prizes for guessing which strategy is
  
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• Families facing homelessness after tycoon issues eviction notices

  14-01-2019 20:06 via theguardian.com
  Controversial landlord Fergus Wilson forces Kent householders to find new homesDozens of families are facing the risk of homelessness after receiving eviction notices from one of Britain’s biggest and most controversial buy-to-let tycoons.Fergus Wilson is giving 90 households in Ashford, Kent two months to get out after he decided to sell his 700 property portfolio in the county estimated to be worth more than £200m. He is expected to issue hundreds more evictions in the coming month
  
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• Average UK car mileage falls again on back of higher petrol prices

  14-01-2019 19:51 via theguardian.com
  Analysis of 23m MOT tests shows average car is driven 10% shorter distance than a decade agoA major analysis of 23m MOT tests has revealed that the average distance driven each year in cars in the UK has fallen again, down 10% from a decade ago.Anonymised data on every MOT test in Britain, released by the Department for Transport, shows that cars travelled an average of 7,134 miles in 2017, down from 7,250 in 2016 and 7,334 miles the year before that. In 2007 the distance driven by each car test
  
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• Four former Barclays executives deny fraud charges ahead of trial

  14-01-2019 19:29 via theguardian.com
  Serious Fraud Office case relates to billions raised from Qatar during financial crisisFour former Barclays executives have appeared at Southwark crown court and pleaded not guilty to charges brought by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in relation to a £12bn rescue package secured by the bank at the height of the financial crisis.The former chief executive John Varley, the ex-investment banking chief Roger Jenkins, the formerhead of Barclays’ wealth division Thomas Kalaris and the ex-E
  
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• Azerbaijani banker’s £1m diamond ring seized in ‘dirty money’ inquiry

  14-01-2019 19:21 via theguardian.com
  Ring bought by Jahangir Hajiyev from Harrods department store confiscated by National Crime AgencyPolice have seized a Cartier diamond ring worth more than £1m bought by a jailed Azerbaijani banker in Harrods, the latest move in the UK’s first McMafia-style “dirty money” investigation.A district judge on Monday granted the confiscation of the ring worth £1,190,000, plus VAT, that Jahangir Hajiyev obtained from at the department store in London’s Knightsbridge
  
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• Boris Johnson dismisses Brexit claims of Jaguar Land Rover boss

  14-01-2019 18:40 via theguardian.com
  Former foreign secretary claims he knows more about car making than Ralf SpethThe former foreign secretary Boris Johnson has suggested he knows more about car manufacturing than the chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover.The Conservative MP and prominent leave campaign backer was responding to a caller in a radio phone-in who suggested that JLR was being forced to cut thousands of jobs in the UK because of Brexit. Continue reading...
  
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• Barclays on wrong side of history with climate policy, says Greenpeace

  14-01-2019 18:23 via theguardian.com
  Environmentalists attack rules that fail to ban funding oil projects linked to tar sandsEnvironmental activists have accused Barclays of being on the “wrong side of history” after publishing an “underwhelming” climate policy document that fails to rule out funding for tar sands projects.Barclays is the last major UK bank to publish rules for how it will conduct business with companies involved in carbon-heavy industries such as oil and coal. Other lenders including HSBC,
  
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• ‘I don’t trust the government to look after me or my dog’: meet the Brexit stockpilers

  14-01-2019 15:00 via theguardian.com
  Some people are stockpiling food, medicine and even pet treats in anticipation of mass shortages after a no-deal Brexit. Are they overreacting, or should we be following their example?Jo Elgarf doesn’t look like you would imagine a prepper to look. She’s not a libertarian, camouflaged and armed to the eyeballs, crawling around the woods in Montana, skinning a squirrel for breakfast and fuelling up for the apocalypse. She lives with her husband and three young children in a sleepy sub
  
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• SSE hits out after Bulb claims big energy firms are squeezing families

  14-01-2019 13:26 via theguardian.com
  Challenger companies’ low prices are unsustainable, says UK’s second-biggest supplierA row has broken out between the UK’s second-biggest energy supplier and one of the largest challenger firms over whether small companies are pricing unsustainably or the big six are ripping people off.The renewable energy supplier Bulb criticised the big six for pegging their default tariffs only £4 on average below the government’s price cap, saying they were treating the measure
  
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• Have we overpaid stamp duty because the house has an annexe?

  14-01-2019 08:05 via theguardian.com
  A company claims we have overpaid £6,208 but we are wary of pursuing thisQ I’ve received three letters from a company claiming to be specialists in reclaiming stamp duty advising us that we may have overpaid £6,208 in stamp duty when we bought our house because it has an annexe. They have offered to make a claim on our behalf on a no-win, no-fee basis (I’m not sure what the fee would be but assume it would be a percentage of the successful claim).We purchased our house in
  
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• An unpaid Three mobile bill wrecked my credit rating

  14-01-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  I can’t get a house or a mobile phone contract, and it might stop my partner getting a job I have discovered a £61 default on my credit report due to an unpaid phone bill – which is now ruining my life. At the end of 2015 I started a new job that offered a phone. I called my provider, Three, to cancel my existing mobile phone contract. I was told I was all paid up and owed nothing. Fast forward to September last year, when I was rejected for credit and found, to my horror, the
  
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• Has the Brexit vote saved London tenants £1,800 pa in rent?

  14-01-2019 07:01 via theguardian.com
  Rent rises 3% lower than forecast partly due to fewer EU migrants and price-out Londoners moving out, says rental indexTenants in London have saved as much as £1,800 in rent as a result of the Brexit referendum in 2016, according to an analysis of more than 100,000 rental properties listed on the Zoopla property website.Rent price growth in London is almost 3% lower than the projected rate of growth since the EU referendum announcement, leaving tenants with more money at the end of the mon
  
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