Why good culture is so important in business February 29, 2016 What is business culture? In the simplest terms, it is the culmination of behaviours and attitudes of individual people within a company that gives the firm its distinctive identity. The late London Business School professor Sumantra Ghoshal called it “the smell of the place”. A healthy culture can be a core driver of positive business [...]
From pensions taxes to the EU referendum to the Elizabeth Line: Here’s what got you reading this week February 27, 2016 1. A pensions tax bombshell Former pensions minister Steve Webb wrote on Sunday that George Osborne is preparing to drop a "tax bombshell" on pensions savers by scrapping the tax-free lump sum. Find out what the chancellor may have planned here. 2. The EU referendum There was no escaping from it: wherever you looked, another politician [...]
UK pensions: Waspi campaign might find itself on the backburner, as Work and Pensions Committee to discuss whether unfairness between different generations is a greater issue February 26, 2016 The Work and Pensions Committee will be hearing evidence on fairness within the pensions regime next week from none other than two former ministers. The Committee announced today that former minister of state for universities and science Lord Willetts and former pensions minister Steve Webb would be giving evidence as part of an ongoing inquiry into intergenerational fairness [...]
As City Airport is sold to consortium of Canadian and Qatari investors led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Borealis Infrastructure, it’s time to let it expand February 26, 2016 The debate about airport capacity in the UK has been dominated by the two giants of Heathrow and Gatwick. Vital as this decision is, it shouldn’t drown out the pressing need to make the most of existing infrastructure assets, including the popular and efficient little airport that sits in the Thames to the east of [...]
City Airport sold to consortium of Canadian and Kuwaiti investors led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Borealis Infrastructure February 25, 2016 City Airport has been sold to a consortium made up of Canadian and Kuwaiti investors, led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Borealis Infrastructure, for around £2bn. The group also includes AimCo and the infrastructure investment vehicle owned by the sovereign wealth fund of Kuwait, Wren House. It beat out bids from Chinese airline owner [...]
Zlota 44 is the tallest residential building in Warsaw and it’s hoping to catch the eye of Western investors February 25, 2016 For millionaire investors, the obvious place to buy for profit is in one of Europe’s great cities. But the bright lights of London, Paris and Berlin may be blinding buyers to smaller pockets of investment that have big potential. One of these is Poland. After years of building it up, the Poles now boast the largest [...]
Capita share price falls after investors take fright at 50 per cent pre-tax profit slump February 25, 2016 Shares in professional services firm Capita, one of the country's major outsourcing companies, have slumped by more than five per cent this morning after a mixed set of results spooked investors. Capita revealed that profit before tax at the business dropped to £112.1m, from £292.4m in 2014 after the business took hits from business exits and impairment [...]
Budget 2016 UK pension changes explained: What pension reforms might chancellor George Osborne have up his sleeve on 16 March? Will Waspi have any state pension joy? February 25, 2016 It's the question on everybody's lips (well, everybody at Morning Wire anyway): what will pensions in the UK look like post-Budget 2016? Several suggestions have been bandied around, but which ones might you want to start banking on and which can you probably afford to ignore? Relief rates slashed for higher earners Bad news if you pay [...]
George Osborne’s relentless attack on hardworking savers is making pensions freedoms meaningless February 25, 2016 At first, George Osborne seemed pension savers’ best friend. ‘Pension freedoms’ – the ability to take money from pensions however you like – were probably the only pension good news most can remember. Then came the sneaky U-turn. Osborne hasn’t taken away pension freedoms, but appears intent on making them meaningless. If he has it his way, there [...]
How challenger banks and P2P lenders can work together – Harriet Green asks OakNorth’s Rishi Khosla February 25, 2016 Alongside the P2P lenders and crowdfunding platforms, challenger banks have continued to make their mark as leaders of the alternative finance revolution. One of those challengers is OakNorth, which launched last year. Sitting in a similar space to P2P lenders in terms of loan size, co-founder Rishi Khosla tells me that: “we really want to be [...]
