The writer is professor of corporate law at the University of Cambridge The Financial Reporting Council has announced a fresh review of the UK Corporate Governance Code, indicating that it will strengthen and expand it. The FRC, likely to be absorbed soon into a new, more powerful regulator — the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority
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When two trains are heading for collision, the switch operator puts them on different tracks. Alas, in geopolitics it is up to the drivers to take evasive action. In the case of the US and China, each questions the other’s ability to drive trains. History offers us little hope that looming trainwrecks will organically resolve
Top officials at the Federal Reserve were seeing inflation data come in very hot for months before policymakers moved to wind down monetary policies that were stimulating the economy. A chorus of analysts, economists and former policymakers have chimed in, saying that was a mistake. “The forward guidance, overall, slowed the response to the Fed
A prospective home buyer is shown a home by a real estate agent in Coral Gables, Florida. Joe Raedle | Getty Images Mortgage demand edged lower for the fourth straight week, according to data released Wednesday, even though interest rates have fallen from their recent highs. Total volume was down 1.8% last week from the
In 2021, 6.9 million homes were bought and sold in the U.S., according to Statista. Real estate transactions are highly administrative and technology makes them more efficient. The PropTech industry—real estate technology—is expected to grow from $18.2 billion in 2022 to $86.5 billion in 2032, according to Future Market Insights. Consumers want better home buying-and-selling
Norway’s Equinor and Spain’s Iberdrola revealed bumper profits on Wednesday as the energy groups benefited from turmoil in commodity markets in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. State-controlled Equinor said it would return an additional $3bn to shareholders as it reported adjusted pre-tax earnings of $17.6bn in the three months to the end of
The world’s biggest oil and gas companies are generating more money than ever while spending relatively little of it. European supermajors BP, Shell and TotalEnergies have each pledged to become green businesses over the next three decades but are still investing only a fraction of their capital on renewable energy. With each expected to report
European gas prices jumped further on Wednesday after Russia followed through on its threat to make further cuts in gas supplies to the region. Gas prices rose 12 per cent early on Wednesday and have risen by more than a third this week from already extremely elevated levels as Europe struggles to fill gas storage
Lloyds Banking Group has beaten quarterly profit estimates and updated full-year guidance as interest rate rises and an increase in mortgages boosted the UK lender. Second-quarter pre-tax profit rose to £2.04bn, inching up from £2.01bn a year earlier but beating consensus of £1.6bn. Revenues for the three months to June rose 10 per cent to
Most apartments in China are sold before developers finish building them. Pictured here on June 18, 2022, are people selecting apartments at a development in Huai’an, Jiangsu province, near Shanghai. Future Publishing | Future Publishing | Getty Images BEIJING — China’s property sales are set to plunge this year by more than they did during
Deutsche Bank has ditched an already reduced target for cost cuts this year as Germany’s largest lender warned that it was braced for “higher-than-expected bank levies, inflation, unforeseen costs related to the war in Ukraine and litigation matters”. The combination of factors has rendered its ambition of bringing costs down to 70 per cent of
Credit Suisse announced plans for a “comprehensive” review of its businesses as the troubled Swiss bank installed Ulrich Körner as chief executive and slumped to a far larger second-quarter loss than expected. Körner, who heads Credit Suisse’s asset management business, will take over from Thomas Gottstein, who is stepping down after leading the bank through
The writer is the founder of Sahm Consulting and a former Federal Reserve and White House economist Some commentators argue that the US needs a recession to bring inflation down. That thinking hinges on a simplistic model of the economy and a refusal to see Covid and the war in Ukraine as important sources of
The Biden administration has bolstered efforts to sign big oil importers on to a plan to cap prices they offer for Russian crude, concerned that without it the world faces a damaging surge in fuel costs. Negotiations are under way between the US and China, India and other countries that have been buying up discounted
The old riverside customs and excise office in South Shields, once one of the world’s most important shipbuilding hubs, boasts a mosaic that tells the port’s maritime story. In the middle there is the River Tyne, before it was blackened by shipyards and coal, teeming with salmon. “There was a time when they used to
Banks in Singapore raised housing loan rates in June, following the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to increase interest rates by 75 basis points in the same month to cool inflation — its most aggressive hike since 1994. Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images Homeowners in Singapore are starting to tighten their belts as they will
Microsoft shrugged off worries about the effects of a weakening economy with a confident forecast for its latest fiscal year on Tuesday, sending its shares up more than 6 per cent in after-hours trading. The optimism came despite a sharp contraction in the personal computer market, the strength of the US dollar and signs of
Shares in US retailers led Wall Street lower on Tuesday after Walmart warned that higher inflation would hurt its profits. The broad S&P 500 share index shed 1.2 per cent, with consumer cyclical stocks suffering the sharpest declines. Walmart’s share price dropped 7.6 per cent after the big-box retailer issued its second profit warning in
Credit Suisse is set to appoint Ulrich Körner as its new chief executive, taking over from Thomas Gottstein, whose departure will bring an end to one of the most tumultuous periods in the Swiss bank’s 166-year history. The appointment of Körner, who is head of the bank’s asset management division, is expected to be announced on
Municipals were firmer Tuesday ahead of the conclusion of the July Federal Open Market Committee meeting where a three-quarter point rate hike is likely, while U.S. Treasuries were weaker and equities sold off. Triple-A curves saw yields fall up to five basis points, depending on the scale, while U.S. Treasuries rose up to three basis
French satellite operator Eutelsat and money-losing UK start-up OneWeb are going for the moonshot: a merger that stakes their future on being able to compete with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. The deal, which was announced on Tuesday, involves an incumbent trying to stave off obsolescence by teaming up with a scrappy tech disrupter —