When then fashion buyer Santosh Kumari was called into the canteen at the offices of BHS more than four years ago to be told she and her colleagues would lose their jobs, the announcement followed plenty of warning signs.
For months before, Santosh says that stock had to be marked down as suppliers hounded the company for payments, later turning down orders because their banks feared that the retailer wouldn’t pay up.
“It was really bizarre because we were all looking for jobs,” she says. “My assistants and I were talking about jobs, where normally you don’t talk to your line manager about going for another job elsewhere.”
When the end came, the business was so bereft of resources that she and other staff were told they would not receive redundancy pay beyond the statutory minimum.
“One day I was flying around the world and in charge of millions of pounds in my department, and the next minute, I have nothing and I’m worried about paying my mortgage.”
For years, financial experts have advised people to set aside money for a rainy day.
But recent research suggests companies in the UK and abroad may not have been following the same principles, with some large firms handing more money back to shareholders than they make in profits.
While few could have predicted the cause and severity of the current economic shock, which has left the UK economy 9.2% smaller, most economists will tell you that recessions come around eventually.
Research led by the University of Sheffield found that 28% of FTSE 100 companies spent more in dividends and on buying their own shares in the last financial year than they generated in net profits.
When you apply for a job with Holly Tucker, founder of online marketplace Not On The High Street, she’s looking for one thing: “Creativity.”
She says: “I want to be wowed by the application, whatever the role. I want to see the care, attention to detail and creativity in their application that I will want to see from them in their job every day.”
She suggests a handwritten letter or an imaginative design as a good starting place.
“Some of my favourite CVs have gone the extra mile and showcased their work within their application and not just told me about it. Are you a video editor? Then send me a video CV. Are you an animator? Animate it! Are you a copywriter? Be bold and rewrite some of the brand’s copy and show them how it should be!”
Two UK billionaire brothers – who made their money in petrol stations – have succeeded in buying UK supermarket giant Asda from US owners Walmart.
Zuber and Mohsin Issa, 48 and 49, started their business with a single petrol forecourt in Bury, Greater Manchester, in 2001.
Now their business, EG Group, owns more than 5,200 petrol stations, mainly in Europe and the US, and employs more than 33,000 people.
The speed of growth marks out the brothers as “remarkable entrepreneurs”, says Brian Madderson, chairman of the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), of which EG Group is a member.
Before lockdown, Amber Millar Chambers worked at two bar jobs to support her university studies. One furloughed her, the other didn’t.
She is among an unknown number of people in the UK who have lost out financially, because for more than three months, workers could not be part-furloughed. Workers not on a company’s payroll are also not eligible for the scheme.
The furlough scheme, brought in to mitigate the effects of coronavirus, allows employees to receive 80% of their monthly salary, up to £2,500.
More than a quarter of the UK workforce – 9.3 million people – are now being supported by it, but there are some that have not been eligible for help.
Recently the share prices of the UK’s largest banks have collapsed, in common with those of many other companies.
Banks such as RBS, Barclays and HSBC have seen their share price fall to levels not seen since the 2008 financial crisis.
Some market-watchers suspect the sellers know something we don’t, but others suggest the banks are in fact much stronger compared with 12 years ago.
The Bank of England has said the banks should be strong enough to weather a 30% contraction in the UK economy.
But someone who would have liked the banks to have been stronger entering the crisis is Sir John Vickers, the man who was charged with constructing a safety plan for Britain’s banks in the wake of the financial crisis.
Seafarers across the world are stuck on their ships, spending months without shore leave as ports ban crew transfers.
While most are being paid and some are getting extra pay, they are doing their jobs without the expected breaks, often 12 hours a day and seven days a week.
Since March, many ports are refusing to allow crew changes or shore leave, meaning for some that a three-month contract becomes almost twice as long.
Most crew members say they’ve had contracts extended in the past, when illness or bad weather delays their relief crew. But mariners with long memories say a situation like this, with no end in sight, is unprecedented.
Clothing giant Primark has gone from making £650m in sales a month to nothing as the coronavirus has forced it to close in Europe and the US, it revealed on Tuesday.
It was not the only company to admit struggling in the face of the pandemic.
John Lewis has furloughed thousands of staff and fashion retailer Cath Kidston said it had closed its stores for good.
Primark owner Associated British Foods “has been squarely in the path of this pandemic,” said boss George Weston.
For Marc Nohr, being a part-time boss means he can spend more time with his family and on charity work.
He is one of about a million people in senior or manager-level jobs who work part time, a number which is growing, according to official figures.
Mr Nohr, who as group chief executive of agencies at Miroma runs a group of marketing and communications agencies, started working four days a week two years ago when he found his hours had become “unsustainable”.
But he admits that not everyone is on board with his decision, noting that the very phrase “part-timer” is considered by some to mean “slacker”.
Workers on the huge Woodsmith mine may have breathed a sigh of relief after its struggling owner Sirius Minerals received a takeover bid.
Anglo American will buy the mine for £404m, or 5.5p per share.
But since the shares were being bought for 24p each only nine months ago, some small investors are nursing big losses, including those who put entire pensions behind the firm.
“You feel extremely sorry for people who’ve invested a lot of money,” says Mark Lightowler, a retiree who invested in Sirius.
In the UK and US, political parties are promising spending splurges to appease voters after a decade of squeezes.
Whether it’s more nurses, frozen tax promises, free broadband internet or more social housing in the UK; or tax cuts and green energy investments in America, public spending is set to surge.
This sudden abandonment of fiscal rectitude comes amid the rise in prominence of a way of thinking about money, spending and the economy – Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).
According to its key architect, US businessman Warren Mosler, it is based on a simple idea – that countries that issue their own currencies can never run out of money in the same way a business or person can.
Earlier this week a leaked draft copy of a review into the HS2 high-speed railway linking London and the North of England recommended it should be completed despite its spiralling costs and delays.
Originally touted as a £33bn project due to partly open in 2026, it is now expected to overrun its current £88bn estimate and won’t debut before 2028, or as late as 2031.
The whole line might not be ready until 2040.
However, it’s just one of many projects around the world whose scale and complexity has led to delays, higher estimated costs and public backlash.
Duncan Carson has just lost his job as a baker at an Asda store near Stoke, but he is preparing to put up a fight.
He is among the Asda workers who have been sacked after refusing to sign up to new contracts, but he aims to take the supermarket to an employment tribunal.
“I think someone should stand up to them,” he said. “What is the point in having a contract if they can unilaterally change it?”
Asda gave its workers until midnight on Saturday to agree to new terms, which include unpaid breaks, changes to night shift payments and being called to work at shorter notice.
When Thomas Cook collapsed on Monday, the effects were felt across the world as tourists scoured for information on how to get home and many staff, despite having lost their jobs, stoically helped them.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) hired 45 jets to bring holidaymakers back, with only 5% of them so far delayed by a day or more.
During the coming days it will bring back the remainder of the 155,000 UK holidaymakers stuck overseas.
As well as workers and customers, the collapse hit suppliers such as hotel owners and will have created a hole in the supply of holidays.
Burford Capital, the litigation funder whose shares lost almost half their value last week, has said trading in its shares “shows evidence consistent with illegal market manipulation”.
The UK firm said traders had cancelled orders in order to deliberately depress the share price.
Burford’s share price plunged after its accounting methods were criticised by Muddy Waters, a US investment firm.
Muddy Waters said the issues found by Burford “have nothing to do with us”.
Every time a Tesla hits a tree, it’s a gift for these enthusiasts.
Around the world, a cottage industry is growing in converting classic cars into electric vehicles.
Small firms are buying up old Nissan and Tesla parts and bolting them into Ferraris, Porsches and BMWs, making them cleaner, easier to maintain and even quicker.
The basic process differs little from firm to firm: take out the engine and fuel tank and replace them with a battery pack and motor, often connecting the motor to the old gear box.
They try to change as little as possible so that the process is reversible.
Stars with legions of followers on Instagram will soon be able to sell products directly to users using the company’s apps.
Facebook, which owns Instagram and Whatsapp, said this week that the future of shopping would depend on content “creators”.
Hiring so-called influencers to shift goods is nothing new. Royal warrants have been sought after for centuries.
They used to be a way to know a product was probably safe and reliable long before consumer protection laws were common. If you got one, your product was literally fit for a king.
Seven more Marks & Spencer stores will close for the last time on Saturday, ending some long associations with town centres across England and Wales.
The firm has now closed 47 shops out of the 100 it plans to shut by 2022.
Like other retailers, M&S is having to adapt to customers’ new habits.
But losing that most stalwart of High Street brands can leave loyal shoppers feeling at a loss, and not just over where to go for cardigans and underwear.
The John Lewis Partnership has announced a 45% drop in annual profit for 2018 and said its workers, who also own the firm, will only get a 3% bonus, down from 5% a year earlier.
Its poor results come at a time of hardship for High Street stores in general and department stores in particular.
While other chains come under real pressure – reporting losses large enough to imperil their ability to pay rent – or indeed face collapse, John Lewis’s struggles must be seen in context, say retail experts.
The company has some inbuilt advantages, they say.
London’s trade guilds date back a thousand years and have billions of pounds in assets. But have they forgotten one of their original purposes – to spend money on the public good?
Among the glass skyscrapers of London’s financial district, and ancient centre, are nestled some very grand-looking low-rise halls, and a clue to the home of some of the city’s more unlikely pockets of wealth.
Livery companies, once a combination of lobbying organisations, regulators and trade unions, are now quite different organisations, focused also on fellowship, education and charity.
They represented the old industries that used to dominate the city. Many have names which are easy to recognise, such as the Butchers, who can trace their beginnings back to the year 975, and the Fishmongers.
When bosses at the top four audit firms were asked by Parliament last week whether they were happy with the quality of the audits they were performing, only one could bring himself to say yes.
And his firm, PwC, was fined a record amount last year for how badly it reviewed now-defunct department store BHS’s books.
It’s a stark assessment of one of the least glamorous but most important roles in finance.
If you are a UK company with more than £10.2m of sales or £5.1m of assets, you usually have to have an auditor. If you don’t, the government can force one upon you.
Many of the UK’s largest shopping chains have reported Christmas sales and it’s a very mixed picture.
While the trade body for shops, the British Retail Consortium, said it’s been the worst Christmas for retailers in 10 years, some shops have had a relatively good festive period.
“Retail is facing the most disruption it’s ever faced,” says Alan O’Neill, who was hired at Selfridges as a consultant when it was bought by the Weston family in 2003.
So whose tills overflowed with Christmas cheer and whose takings resembled an empty stocking?
It is in the finest carpets, it is in Harris Tweed, and now you’ll even find it in top-of-the-range beds; but at £1 a kilo, UK wool hasn’t been this cheap in seven years.
Only 14 months ago, it was worth 30% more. So why is wool coming down in price and how come the cost of that soft woollen jumper isn’t coming down as well?
According to Jo Dawson, who has spent 20 years in the wool trade, there are a number of reasons which have combined over time.
Since sheep make wool come what may, if wool demand drops, prices can suffer quickly if fleeces go unsold.
Sir John Vickers, who was asked to construct a safety plan for Britain’s banks in the wake of the financial crisis, has warned regulators over hasty bank asset sales.
Parliament is investigating whether UK banks have the capital means to keep going during a shock and Sir John and the Bank of England gave evidence.
The Bank said some lenders could help themselves by selling off assets.
Sir John has warned that this could lead to a “fire sale”.
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC), which regulates how firms govern themselves, is too “timid” and needs more powers, says former City minister Lord Myners.
It should “stand up to government and say we need legal change… to strengthen governance,” he said.
He added that shareholders also had to take responsibility and act if a company’s standards were failing.
The FRC said it had requested more powers to tackle bad behaviour.
Kraft Heinz has abandoned its offer to buy Unilever, its Anglo-Dutch rival.
The Marmite maker rejected the US food giant’s bid on Friday, saying it saw “no merit, either financial or strategic” in Kraft’s offer, worth about $143bn (£115bn).
“Unilever and Kraft Heinz hold each other in high regard,” the companies said in a joint statement.
Shares in Unilever, which closed 13% higher on Friday, fell 7.3% in lunchtime trading in London to £35.18.
UK companies should adopt a Swedish-style shareholder committee in an effort to curb excessive pay for bosses, an MP has said.
The five biggest shareholders in large publicly-traded companies would sit on the committee, said Chris Philp, MP for Croydon South.
It would make decisions on pay and hiring directors.
His plan follows a call from Prime Minister Theresa May for tighter controls on corporate excess.
“I’m concerned that large shareholders in big public companies are simply not sufficiently engaged in taking responsibility for their investments in the companies they are invested in,” he told Radio 4’s Today programme.
Companies should stop buying up their own shares unless they can show why it is a good idea, a leading advisory firm has told the BBC.
Companies should explain why they are buying and cancelling their own shares and not paying more dividend or using cash to expand their businesses, Pirc told the BBC’s Today programme.
Buying up shares can make a company’s performance seem better, often leading to bigger bonuses for bosses.
It used to be illegal in the UK.
“It’s the ultimate of what is described as financial engineering where the company is seen as a financial instrument rather than a thing which shareholders own and should be creating value from what it’s doing,” said Tim Bush, head of governance and financial analysis at investors’ advisory consultancy Pirc.
The “unknown” of leaving the EU could help stimulate Britain, according to Hargreaves Lansdown co-founder Peter Hargreaves, who backs the UK’s withdrawal from the union.
He told the Today programme a fresh start could help Britain innovate.
Demand for UK fashion and cars, as well as the attractiveness of the UK as a market for the EU, would ensure good trade deals, he said.
The Stronger In campaign said the EU supported jobs, growth and low prices.
The man who led an inquiry into the future safety of Britain’s banks has said Bank of England plans are not strong enough.
Sir John Vickers, who headed up the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB), said: “The Bank of England proposal is less strong than what the ICB recommended.”
In a BBC interview, he added: “I don’t think the ICB overdid it.”
The property market, like that of gold and oil, is a rather murky world.
The prices you’ll see on most websites are asking prices. The value of a done deal – the real price – can take land registries weeks to process, by which time a fast-paced market will have moved on.
So those on the inside doing the deals, such as estate agents and developers, have a distinct advantage.
Could technology help blast open this closed market?
After Libor, payment protection insurance, phone hacking and every other scandal, nothing appears to have been learned to stem the tide of bad behaviour from the world’s largest companies.
And now VW has been caught cheating on emissions tests.
Not only is this a close repetition of other corporate attempts to dodge regulation, it’s actually so uninventive that VW was caught and fined in 1973 for dodging similar tests. It paid $120,000 (the equivalent of about £400,000 today) and admitted no wrongdoing.
Barclays is close to appointing former JP Morgan banker James “Jes” Staley as its new chief executive.
Hiring an investment banker is being seen by some analysts as a prelude to making a push back into that industry, one which the last holder of the top job, Antony Jenkins, was backing away from.
But will an expansion into a sector dominated by a few American names be successful? After all, this won’t be Barclays first drive into investment banking.
When he spoke in Parliament in 2011, former Barclays boss Bob Diamond claimed the time for apologising and remorse from lenders was over.
He may have thought he had misjudged the mood when he was forced out of his bank a year later, under pressure from regulators.
But as Chancellor George Osborne presses for change at the City’s watchdog after sacking its chief, Martin Wheatley, cuts back a key tax on banks, and starts selling the government’s stake in Royal Bank of Scotland, are things now finally looking up for our financial institutions?
In spite of recent misdemeanours – not least this week’s conviction of the trader Tom Hayes for rigging Libor rates – are we ready to forgive them?
The question on everyone’s lips is whether the taxpayer will get value for money from its investment in Royal Bank of Scotland as the government sells it back to private investors.
But the complexity of the investment, and the chaotic time during which the UK bailed out the bank, mean you can choose any answer you wish.
Overnight, the government has sold 5.4% of the bank for £2.1bn, booking a loss of about £1bn in selling the shares at 330p apiece.
On Monday, laws which offer some of New York City’s renters protection from large hikes are due to expire.
Many people associate the rent rules with the TV shows Friends and Sex and the City, which allowed the protagonists to live in Manhattan with relatively modest-paying jobs.
Tenants are campaigning for stronger rules that will keep homes protected by law, while landlords worry about squeezed incomes and legislation they argue favours high-earners rather than the less well-off.
On Wednesday, four of the world’s largest banks – JP Morgan, Barclays, Citigroup and Royal Bank of Scotland – pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the US relating to the rigging of currency markets.
It is rare for a company to be found guilty of criminal behaviour. For some bank watchers this move represents a problem for regulators: aside from more fines, little else has changed, and they may have just played their best card.
Two years ago, the then US Attorney General Eric Holder opined that criminal charges against large banks could threaten the global economy. But now?
“Now it’s a non-event. We have trivialised the criminal penalties, so I don’t know what’s left,” says Cornelius Hurley, director of the Boston University Centre for Finance, Law & Policy.
AOL, the firm which told you “you’ve got mail” and delivered more CDs to your door than Amazon, is being bought by Verizon.
The deal values AOL at $4.4bn (£2.8bn), a long way from the mammoth $222bn price tag the company attracted 16 years ago during a boom in the share prices of technology firms.
AOL started life as Quantum Computer Services, which first provided an online service for the Commodore 64 computer system in 1985.
HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, may be on the lookout for a new home. When it announced its plan to review where to have its headquarters, it made passing references to “regulatory and structural reforms” and the UK’s plans to “ring fence” retail banks.
Some shareholders think a higher dividend would be available if the bank moved from London to a city with lower taxes and looser capital controls, according to people close to the lender.
It pays the most out of the UK’s lenders on the banking levy, handing over $1.1bn (£716m) to Britain’s Treasury last year. But if it does decide to move, where could it go?
Billionaire Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct International has been challenged in Parliament about how the firm is run.
Mr Ashley has been criticised before for the grip he has as a majority shareholder, on the firm – famous for selling top trainers on the cheap and indestructible oversized mugs.
The Institute of Directors says it has warned already that Mr Ashley holds too much sway and the IoD’s senior advisor on corporate governance, Oliver Parry says that there is no “effective check on [Mr Ashley’s] power”.
Now his firm’s handling of the collapse of one of its businesses, fashion chain USC, is also under scrutiny, being described at the Scottish Affairs Committee as “well dodgy”.
The average chief executive trousered £4.5m in 2013 – more than 160 times the pay of the average Briton, and up 5% from 2012.
This research from the High Pay Centre is likely to put executive pay high up on the agenda during April’s annual general meeting (AGM) season.
While exorbitant levels of pay at the top may stick in the craw of hard-pressed workers trying to cope with falling wages and job insecurity, it seems that even business leaders themselves are growing concerned.
A recent poll of Institute of Directors members found that more than half thought excessive pay packets were eroding people’s trust in big companies. So how can we curb boardroom wage inflation?
For HSBC, revelations that it helped wealthy clients in Switzerland evade tax is part of a litany of scandals for it and other banks.
Documents seen by Panorama show bankers helped clients evade tax and offered deals to help tax dodgers stay ahead of the law.
But for some watching the lender and its peers, it is a case study of a much wider problem of governments not cracking down with enough urgency on dodged tax, and a useful lesson on the short arm of international law.
The Money Shop, a payday lender owned by US firm Dollar Financial, is in the midst of a consultation process to close as many as 200 of its 500 stores.
As many as 350 staff could be made redundant out of a total of about 3,000 employed by Money Shop, the company has confirmed.
The company hopes to keep compulsory redundancies down by finding new roles for staff, sources told the BBC earlier.
Oil firm Royal Dutch Shell was told a pipeline had reached the end of its life years before it spilled up to 500,000 barrels of oil, according to court documents seen by the BBC.
By Howard Mustoe 17 September 2014 As Scotland decides whether to become an independent nation, some financiers are asking themselves what this could mean for two of the oldest money centres in the world: London and Edinburgh.
Part of Emilio Botin’s success was spotting the opportunities for Spain as it joined the European Community in 1986. This was a mere 11 years after the death of dictator Francisco Franco and the year Mr Botin took over the bank from his father.
He grew the bank through aggressive purchase of competitors, but also through banking services novel in Spain at the time, turning it into the largest bank by value in the eurozone today.
By Howard Mustoe 17 June 2014 Not many people investing money in a pension or crowdfunding a project would consider they are participating in something as sinister-sounding as shadow banking.
However, as banks cut lending and businesses look for other ways to find the money they need, this area of finance is growing and attracting the attention of the government. But what exactly is shadow banking?
“Putting together the pipelines,” was how Pfizer chief executive Ian Read explained his proposed takeover of British drugmaking rival AstraZeneca.
“Let’s make sure we get good capital allocation… build a culture of ownership… flexible use of financial assets… productive science… opportunity to domicile… putting together the headcount,” were among his phrases as he faced MPs last month, much to the frustration of committee members.
By Howard Mustoe 20 March 2014 A change in pension rules heralded in the chancellor’s Budget speech means a retiree can now draw their entire pension in one go, if they wish. For some, the freedom will mean retirement planning that can better suit their needs. But what does it mean for the centuries-old annuity, and the security of an income for life which it provides?
By Aaron Kirchfeld and Howard MustoeJan 31, 2014 HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA), Europe’s largest bank, is planning to sell parts of its Swiss private bank as some foreign lenders retreat amid a crackdown on bank secrecy and rising regulatory scrutiny, four people with knowledge of the situation said.
By Howard MustoeDec 9, 2013 HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA), Europe’s largest bank, has no plans to sell a stake in its U.K. consumer unit, one of the most profitable in the country, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
By Howard MustoeMay 23, 2013 Three U.K. business lobby groups told the European Union its proposed financial transaction tax will harm economic recovery and damage the trading bloc’s competitiveness. The tax will be paid for by consumers, rather than the financial companies it targets, in the form of price increases, the Confederation of British Industry, the British Bankers’ Association and EEF, the U.K. manufacturers’ organization, said in a joint letter today, seen by Bloomberg News.
By Howard Mustoe and Ben MoshinskyApr 3, 2013 U.K. lenders are preparing to lobby the European Union’s chief banking regulator to reduce the number of employees hit by rules capping bonuses, two people familiar with the talks said.
By Howard MustoeFeb 27, 2013 Governments should let failing banks collapse rather than risk taxpayers’ money, according to Anthony Browne, chief executive officer of the British Bankers’ Association.
By Howard MustoeJul 16, 2012 The U.K.’s Financial Services Authority refused to release questions it asked former Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Fred Goodwin, regarding the bank’s near collapse, saying it’s his own personal information and may deter others from cooperating.
By Howard Mustoe, Ambereen Choudhury and Anne-Sylvaine ChassanyJul 9, 2012 Barclays Plc (BARC) needs to find a successor for Robert Diamond who is the opposite of the American investment banker as a first step to restoring political trust. Diamond, 60, quit last week after the London-based bank was fined a record 290 million pounds ($449 million) for trying to rig the London interbank offered rate, the benchmark interest rate for more than $360 trillion of securities.
By Elisa Martinuzzi, Howard Mustoe and Ambereen ChoudhuryJul 4, 2012 When Robert Diamond took over Barclays Plc (BARC)’s shrinking securities unit in 1997 he vowed to turn the business into a leading global firm. Fifteen years later, his success in creating a top investment bank, whose profit reached $4.7 billion in 2011, may hasten its split from the lender after the London-based bank admitted to trying to rig global interest rates. Diamond quit as Barclays’s chief executive officer yesterday and hours later Chief Operating Officer Jerry del Missier followed.
By Howard MustoeDec 15, 2011 Barclays Plc (BARC)’s management is “99 percent to blame” for poor relationships with British politicians and regulators, said Bruce Packard, an analyst at Seymour Pierce Ltd. in London. Barclays Chief Executive Officer Robert Diamond and Anthony Jenkins, head of the bank’s consumer unit, faced questioning yesterday on banker pay and regulatory change by the House of Commons Treasury Committee in London.
By Simon Clark and Howard MustoeNov 7, 2011 Three-quarters of London financial professionals said the gap between rich and poor is too big, according to a report by the St. Paul’s Institute, a church group that seeks to engage banks with moral questions.
By Howard MustoeAug 24, 2010 Rolls-Royce Group Plc has yet to reopen a site used to trial jet engines for Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner model and the rival Airbus SAS A350 after a $17 million turbine blew up on the test bed three weeks ago.
By Howard MustoeJan 14, 2009 Small-cap technology companies from Silicon Valley to Israel, struggling to raise enough money to survive amid the credit crisis, are selling prized patents to stay in business.
By Jonathan Browning and Howard Mustoe Dec 24, 2009 National Express Group Plc offered to pay the U.K. government 100 million pounds ($160 million) in return for a staged withdrawal from the unprofitable East Coast railroad franchise, according to official documents obtained by Bloomberg News. The plan was rejected and the line nationalized.
By Howard Mustoe and Jonathan Browning Nov 18, 2009 Accountants, management consultants and custom tailors are donating increasing time and expertise to Britain’s Conservative opposition, anticipating the party will beat Prime Minister Gordon Brown in next year’s election.
By Jonathan Browning and Howard MustoeJul 3, 2009 British units of companies including Grupo Ferrovial SA (FER), Westfield Group (WDC) and Deutsche Bahn AG are shifting cash to the Conservative opposition from the Labour Party as Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s popularity ebbs.
By Howard Mustoe and Jonathan Browning April 17, 2009 U.K. Financial Investments Ltd., which oversees the government’s shareholdings in banks, is allowed to lend out the stock to short-sellers, who were only months ago attacked by politicians for destabilizing the banks.
By Caroline Alexander and Howard Mustoe Oct 9, 2008 Hidden in foliage next to a path in the southeast England seaside town of Hastings are digital cameras. Their target: litterbugs and dog walkers. The electronic eyes feed images to a monitoring unit, where they’re scanned and stored as evidence to prosecute people who discard garbage or fail to clean up after pets, a spokeswoman for the town council said.
