A matter of days to go before the Scots decide on their future, narrowing poles are understandably spooking financial markets. On Monday, the pound dropped to its weakest level since the end of 2013 versus the dollar. If this wasn’t enough to make the Scots choke on their battered mars bars, Lloyds shares fell by £1.7bn (3 per cent) yesterday. […]
The proposed takeover of British-based pharmaceuticals firm, Astra Zeneca, by US rival Pfizer is now off the agenda: the board of the former has rejected Pfizer’s “final” bid of £69bn to buy it up. This deal has been much in the press in recent weeks—partly due to the size of the would-have-been combined entity—but principally because it would have meant […]
Expecting a long life? The latest proposal from the Pensions Minister may help you here. Steve Webb has announced that the Government is considering a proposal to provide pensioners, upon retirement, with an estimate of how long they might live. Morbid stuff, perhaps, but the thinking is that people tend to under-estimate how many years they might get before they shuffle off […]
Tuesday’s Times brought news that the Financial Conduct Authority has managed to land itself in some hot water with the Chancellor. The FCA—set up by the Coalition Government to draw a line under the Brown-era Financial Services Authority—has been accused of “precipitating a disorderly market in insurers’ shares” by leaking to the press that it intended to review whether closed […]
Jonathan Galbraith on why Osborne’s big Budget idea on annuity reform should be welcomed. The big surprise in George Osborne’s Budget last week —the proverbial rabbit in the Chancellor’s hat—is the change in pensions rules which will remove the requirement to purchase an annuity at retirement from April 2015 onwards. An annuity is an insurance product that allows you to […]
Matt Gass looks at the challenges to the economy in 2014 I can’t point to a single defining moment but at some point in 2013 most seemed to conclude that the long awaited recovery had arrived. This feeling has brought on hopes that, after many false starts and premature reports of green shoots, 2014 will see the recovery we have […]
Any entrepreneur knows that they go into business because they have a passion, and of course, because they think they can provide a better service or create a product to outstrip one that already exists. I started my company a tour operator specialising in visits to the First World War battlefields earlier this year for those very reasons. A few […]
