Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 930 i MoneyWeek

Denmark’s general insurer Tryg, the country’s top non-life insurer, is extending its reach into the Scandinavian market, says WirtschaftsWoche. The group’s offerings include pet, car, travel and home insurance; it also sells insurance to companies large and small. It has just scooped up a Danish rival, while an agreement with Danske Bank will provide access to over three million clients. Tryg is especially good at managing risk, as demonstrated by a combined ratio (the ratio of payouts to premiums) of 84%. Premiums reached €1.83bn in the first nine months of 2018. The insurer has ample capital reserves and boasts a 4% dividend yield.…

“There is a big question mark over the future of the department store as a concept,” says The Independent. But whatever eventually happens to that shopping format, the speed of the decline at Debenhams shows this one has got things “badly wrong”. It was reported this week Debenhams is planning to close a total of 90 stores, which could threaten 10,000 jobs. The embattled chain had already said it will shut around 50 stores over three to five years; it now seems the board thinks these plans don’t go far enough. Thanks to fewer shoppers, a large rent bill and intensifying online competition (see page 20), the company’s market capitalisation has slumped from £1.7bn at its flotation in 2006 to the present value of £87m today, notes Ben Chapman, also…

Theresa May’s government looked bound to win the confidence vote as MoneyWeek went to press. Nevertheless, Labour could repeatedly test MPs’ confidence in May’s government over the coming weeks as it pushes for a general election, says The Times. That prospect has led to his exclusion from May’s cross-party talks, says Rajeev Syal in The Guardian. Corbyn “clearly hasn’t any” Brexit proposals of his own, says Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the House of Commons, and is merely seeking to “disrupt government” at a crucial time. Corbyn’s position of “constructive ambiguity” has arisen because his eurosceptic instincts are “at odds” with the views of Labour members, almost 80% of whom want a second referendum, says Rachel Sylvester in The Times. He is “playing for time”, says Matthew Parris in the…

Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party, “faces what is the most severe test of her leadership with her party split from top to bottom and her own truthfulness called into serious question”, says Alan Cochrane in The Daily Telegraph. The recent collapse of an internal investigation into claims that former leader Alex Salmond harassed two civil servants, with a court ruling that it suffered from flaws, has led to “open warfare” between the rival supporters of Salmond and Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister. Salmond has also hinted that members of Sturgeon’s’s team leaked rumours that he was about to be charged by the police. This is a “sad and tawdry” tale and the plight of the women who made the initial complaints is in danger of being overlooked, says…

The current global monetary system is coming to an end – and the euro could be the main casualty, warns analyst and financial historian Russell Napier in the Financial Times. Napier notes since the Asian economic crisis in the late 1990s, central banks in emerging economies have been intervening in the foreign exchange markets to keep their currencies weak against the US dollar. As a result, their reserves of dollars have ballooned (as they sell their own currencies to buy dollars), resulting “in the forced purchasing of US Treasuries” (as they invest the accumulated dollars in a “safe” asset). This has repressed US Treasury yields, fuelling an investment and consumer boom. But now foreign exchange reserves are no longer growing, which means new US government debt (and there’s a lot…

Bosses at NHS Property Services, the company owned by the Department of Health and Social Care that manages around 3,600 NHS properties, were paid bonuses of £180,000 in 2017-2018, reports the Health Service Journal (HSJ). This is despite the company reporting a deficit of £40.9m – up from £35.4m the previous year. Elaine Hewitt, the CEO, received a bonus of £75,000-£80,000 on top of her salary of £220,000 and the director of asset management, John Westwood, was paid £40,000-£45,000 as well as his £170,000 salary. Julian Pearce, chief financial officer, got £35,000-£40,000 over and above his £170,000 salary. NHS England, by contrast, has scrapped bonuses because of the “current economic climate and the need to provide effective system leadership for the NHS”, says the HSJ. NHS Property Services has recorded…

• Hedge funds suffered their worst year since 2011 last year as market turmoil towards the end of 2018 caught many off-guard, say Lindsay Fortado and Laurence Fletcher in the Financial Times. “But it was not all bad news for the beleaguered industry”: it beat the S&P 500 index for the first time in a decade. Hedge-fund performance was down 4.07% last year, relative to a 4.38% fall for the S&P, according to figures from Hedge Fund Research. The last time hedge funds beat the US index was during the financial crisis in 2008, when they fell 19.03%, relative to the S&P’s 37%. “In an environment where equity markets are off 15% in a two-and-a-half month period, doing well is really about capital preservation”, says John McCormick of Blackstone Alternative…

A five-storey mansion in Belgravia that was on the market for almost a decade has finally sold after a £40m price reduction, says Jonathan Prynn in the Evening Standard. Nevertheless, this is still believed to be the most expensive house sale in the capital this year. The Grade 1-listed, five-storey, stucco-fronted Belgrave Square mansion was previously the London home of William Cavendish, the 7th Duke of Devonshire. Lebanese property developer Moussa Salem bought the 19,325 sq ft property in 2006 for around £33m, and then put it on the market in early 2009 for £100m after spending £20m gutting and refurbishing the interior.…

Financial markets are so busy looking to the future that the past gets forgotten quickly. So having work publicly dismissed as “absolutely silly” is unlikely to cause lasting damage to a firm’s reputation. But when the words come from Warren Buffett, one of the world’s most respected investors, they tend to stick. No wonder, then, that “proxy advisers”, the groups he was attacking when he made his remarks 15 years ago, have come under ever-closer scrutiny recently. Proxy advisers are firms that get paid by investment and pension funds to recommend how to vote when listed companies hold a ballot. They will also vote on fund managers’ behalf under terms agreed with them beforehand. Following mounting criticism of their behaviour, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US investment watchdog, and…

Paying £1,300 to have excessive earwax removed from your dog’s ears is not the kind of expense you want to be saddled with. Unfortunately, if you have pet insurance, your insurer might not pay for it either. The small print of some pet-insurance policies can conceal exceptions that will give you a nasty surprise, as Kate Palmer points out in Sunday Times Money. Robert and Mary Mirfin from Yorkshire (pictured), who had paid for the wax-removal up front, couldn’t claim on their insurance policy because they had bought their new policy with insurer More Than through a comparison website, rather than accepting the renewal quote directly from the firm. The insurer treated them as new customers, meaning they were not covered for any illnesses arising with the first two weeks…

New rules making it illegal to cold-call people to offer pensions advice finally came into effect last week, almost two years after the ban was first announced by the government. Under the new rule, firms can be fined up to £500,000 for making unsolicited approaches offering pension investment schemes. The ban follows a sharp increase in the value of pensions-related fraud since the pensions freedom reforms of 2015 made it easier for people to access their savings, with victims losing an average of £91,000 each, according to the Financial Conduct Authority, the industry watchdog. Such scams often begin with a cold-call from a salesperson offering a free pensions review, followed up by the promise of tempting returns from alternative investment schemes; in practice, such returns never materialise, and in many…

John Laing Group (LSE: JLG) began life as a construction company in 1848, but having divested itself of its various building divisions since the turn of the millennium it now concentrates on operating publicly financed infrastructure projects. It has also started to reduce its exposure to the UK while building up its portfolio overseas, with significant projects in the US and Asia. A rights issue in March 2018 was followed by a strong set of half-yearly results, with pre-tax profits up by 375%. The share price has risen by almost 30% in 12 months.…

Boiler Room (2000) is a film staring Giovanni Ribisi and Vin Diesel (pictured), set in the world of underground brokerages (also known as boiler rooms). To the distaste of his father, college dropout Seth (Ribisi) makes a living by running an illegal casino in his house. One of his customers persuades him to apply for a job at brokerage JT Marlin. Seth quickly learns the brokerage is a scam, selling penny stocks in dubious companies to investors using high-pressure sales techniques. Disillusioned, Seth tries to set up a scheme to destroy the brokerage, which backfires, leading to his father and him facing arrest. The key moment Shortly after Seth joins the firm, senior broker Chris Varick (Diesel) explains how the firm operates. A junior broker cold calls lists…

I have written up every single vintage of this game-changing rosé and two years ago I featured the 2016 vintage on this very page, announcing an “en primeur” opportunity to secure your stock before it arrived in the UK. This method of ordering is particularly important for those of you who adore large formats. As we ease into January, the 2018 vintage of this elite rosé is about to be bottled and shipped and it is a thriller. Sadly, this is the last vintage over which the great Patrick Léon presided, as he passed away in December. Patrick’s winemaking reputation was immense and I can tell you that he was one of the most fascinating, modest and engaging people I have ever met in the business. With Château Lascombes, Château…

Villagers in Nottinghamshire were told they were doing God’s work by donating money for Heaven on Earth, a spectacular musical that would tell the story of Adam and Eve. Members of the congregation of the International Church in Mansfield Woodhouse, who stumped up £500,000 between them, were told the show would tour the UK’s stadiums and arenas with a cast of 30, including tenor Russell Watson (pictured) as the voice of God. But three weeks before it was due to open, the company behind the production went bust, leaving debts of £2.6m. Some months later, the church itself – a separate organisation but run by many of the same people, according to the BBC – went under, too. Good week for: Cathay Pacific customers bagged bargains after the airline mistakenly…

The past few months have been good for gold. The recent tumble in equity markets, higher volatility and fears of further trouble on the trade front have all prompted investors to seek out a safe haven. While the FTSE All World index has lost 10% since its September peak, gold has gained 7% over the same time period. There is scope for further gains. If US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell decides to stop raising interest rates, as he indicated he might, “or even go the whole hog and cut them”, gold could benefit, says Russ Mould, of platform AJ Bell. Such a policy reversal would reflect a weakening US and global outlook, bolstering gold’s appeal as a safe haven. And because gold has no yield, its relative appeal grows…

This is an excellent time to buy silver, says Wirtschaftswoche’s Frank Doll. It hasn’t been this cheap relative to gold in a quarter of a century. It costs more than 85 ounces of silver to buy an ounce of gold. Whenever the gold-silver ratio (the gold price divided by the silver price) eclipses 80, it tends to herald a rise in the silver price. Other factors bode well, too. Inflation may be on the way, the US Federal Reserve seems less inclined to knock it on the head, and supplies are set to fall: silver is mined as a byproduct of industrial metals, and with metals prices on the slide, less of it will be produced. Industrial demand is enjoying a long-term upswing – it has risen by 130% since…

Messaging app Slack, a corporate version of WhatsApp, is set to emulate Spotify and go public through a so-called direct listing. Normally investment banks underwrite an initial public offering (IPO), setting the price of a block of shares and buying or selling shortly after the market debut to ensure the price isn’t too volatile. Slack, however, will save money on investment banking fees by offering stock directly to investors, letting it trade freely when the market opens. Refusing an IPO means it won’t raise capital through going public, but it has already raised large sums in private financing rounds. The five-year-old company is worth around $7bn.…

Gold miner Newmont “is paying up to join the merger party”, says George Hay for Reuters BreakingViews. Hot on the heels of the $18bn merger between Randgold and Barrick, Newmont is offering $10bn in stock for Canada’s Goldcorp. It will own 65% of the combined company. However, while optimists argue the deal should produce $100m in annual synergies, these will be dwarfed by the $1.5bn premium Newmont is offering. What’s more, “getting cost savings out in Canada may be problematic in an election year, insofar as they come from dispensing with workers”. The upshot? “It’s hard to see why Newmont’s decision to be bigger will make it much better”. Nonetheless, analysts are expecting “a flurry of dealmaking” as the industry seeks to improve its performance and boost shareholder returns, say…

Events in British politics are moving so quickly any odds I quote could have significantly shifted by the time this column reaches you. So let’s shift focus towards the US presidential election of 2020. One of the most interesting markets is the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, which begins with primaries in a year’s time and concludes at the convention six months later. According to Betfair the frontrunners are California senator Kamala Harris (pictured) at 4.7 (21.2%), Beto O’Rouke at 5.1 (19.6%), former vice-president Joe Biden at 6.2 (16.1%), Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren at 14 (7.1%), Vermont independent Bernie Sanders at 18 (5.5%), and New York senator Kristen Gillibrand at 16.5 (6.1%). There is also a long tail of other candidates,  including Tulsi Gabbard, Sherrod Brown and Cory Booker.…

We like to remind our readers that costs matter. You can’t predict the return you’ll make, or be sure of how the economic backdrop will affect your investments. But you can control what you pay to invest – and every penny saved on costs is an extra penny compounding away in your retirement account. This week, another report arrived to hammer the point home. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published its first annual report into the cost and performance of “retail investment products” (investment funds, in other words). ESMA, which is a European Union (EU) financial watchdog, looked at the performance of both active and passive funds across various EU states from 2008 to 2017. “Each penny saved on costs is an extra one compounding away” When it…

Just about every week brings another example of a few billion being poured into a snazzy new app for managing your money. The latest is the Berlin-based N26. Last week the company announced it had raised an extra $300m from backers, which included China’s emerging internet giant Tencent and Peter Thiel, one of the founders of PayPal. That took its valuation up to an impressive $2.7bn, making it Europe’s largest fintech start-up. A crowded sector N26 is certainly an interesting and ambitious company. But it’s entering a very crowded sector. Monzo already has a value of $1bn. In April last year Revolut raised another $250m, taking its value to $1.7bn. Starling Bank raised plenty of money for its launch, and so have Atom and Tandem. That is before you get…

No magic wand to end poverty Clare Foges The Times We are repeatedly told by politicians and commentators that Brexit was “the establishment’s comeuppance for ignoring the poorest”, but inflaming grievances in this way does “our fractured country” no favours, says Clare Foges. Yes, there is serious poverty and inequality, but successive “well-meaning and hardworking” governments have tried a “thousand different policies to reduce them”, from New Labour’s social programmes to the coalition government’s regional growth agencies. When George Osborne was chancellor, the richest 1% paid a record 27% of all income tax. Overall, the tax burden on the rich has trebled since the seventies. The point is, successive governments have tried hard to create real and sustainable growth in “left-behind” towns, but often they are “pushing water uphill”. Heavy…

The long history of the investment-trust sector means it contains names to delight the nostalgic and infuriate Guardian readers. Sadly, these names are disappearing. Foreign & Colonial is changing its name to F&C, while some F&C funds are becoming BMO, a ghastly acronym unlikely to stand the test of time. Fortunately, the 130-year-old British Empire Trust (LSE: BTEM) has no plans to change a name that has nothing to do with its investment focus. A focus on quality The trust’s focus is on “high-quality businesses trading at wide discounts to their net asset value” (NAV – the value of the underlying portfolio). These can be closed-end funds (currently 49% of the £1bn portfolio); family controlled holding companies, mostly in Europe and Asia (33%); and over-capitalised Japanese companies (18%). While British…

Buying into the warehouses and logistics companies that allow us to order from Amazon to our heart’s content has been a popular investment idea in the UK for some time. But it now looks as though the continent is about to catch up. The shift in how we shop “offers continued opportunities in the logistics sector”, says law firm DLA Piper, quoting a forecast that as much as 25% of our shopping could eventually be conducted online (see page 20). Within Europe, the UK currently leads the way, with the proportion of retail conducted online at 20%, while consumers expect increasingly prompt deliveries. By contrast, mainland Europe shops online for only 8% of its retail requirements (3% in Italy, 5% in Spain, and around 10% in France and Germany). The…

High noon on the high street. Retail apocalypse. Massacre at the mall. There has been a relentless stream of grim headlines about retailers in crisis in the past few years, and it looks as though 2019 will bring more of the same. Indeed, even before the champagne corks were popped to welcome in the new year, music retailer HMV announced it would be entering administration for the second time; it was resuscitated after going bust in 2013. Meanwhile, Austin Reed, BHS, House of Fraser, Toys R Us, Maplin, Poundworld, Mothercare, New Look and Debenhams (see page 7) are among the high street stalwarts that have either disappeared or may be about to. In the first eight months of 2018, 28 retailers closed 2,085 shops. More than a tenth of retail…

In an uncertain and potentially volatile marketplace, it’s vital small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) focus on what they can control for themselves, particularly by managing their costs carefully. From office stationery to a broadband connection, SMEs too often pay over the odds, even when their owners and managers are confident bargain hunters in their personal lives. The good news, however, is that you can save a lot of money by shopping around. Where you can save Financial services are a good example. If you have not switched bank accounts since launching your business now is the time to look at what’s available. Leading providers including HSBC, TSB, Co-op Yorkshire and Clydesdale banks are currently offering new SME customers fee-free banking for at least 18 months. Alternatively, consider a challenger bank…

For cash-poor retirees who own their own home, equity-release plans have long offered a means to gain capital later in life. And with more people now taking out such plans, the market is increasingly competitive. As a result, if you took out an equity-release plan a few years ago, you may now be able to switch to a much better deal. Equity-release plans enable older homeowners to unlock some of the value tied up in their properties while staying in the home. The money advanced is repaid, with interest, from the proceeds of the sale of the house when they die or move into long-term care. Traditionally, providers have charged expensive rates compared with standard mortgage deals. Moreover, with interest accumulating over the lifetime of the loan, the final repayment…

Public-sector workers whose jobs are outsourced to private-sector providers will in future be entitled to retain their membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), under new proposals from the government. At present, firms bidding for such contracts are entitled to offer staff transferring to them an equivalent pension arrangement, rather than paying for their continued LGPS membership, but this option is to be scrapped. The reform reflects increasing concern public-sector workers could end up having to depend on the Pension Protection Fund (the industry lifeboat fund) if they move to a private-sector firm that subsequently goes bust, potentially limiting the retirement benefits to which they are entitled. This danger has been brought into sharp relief by the collapse last year of the contractor Carillion, where tens of thousands of…

British American Tobacco (LSE: BATS) is the world’s second-biggest tobacco company by sales. Its acquisition of Reynolds American in 2017 gave it a big share of the declining US market. But a recent ban on menthol cigarettes has hastened the decline of that market. BATS, like other tobacco groups, has turned to emerging markets, but many governments there – China in particular – are starting to clamp down on smoking. It has also diversified into the vaping market, but US authorities are now eyeing up this sector too. The share price has slid by 46% in the past year.…

Germany’s benchmark index, the DAX-30, was far from the only stockmarket to suffer its worst year in a decade in 2018. But its 18% decline was worse than that of most other major markets; the FTSE 100 lost some 12.5% last year. One problem is a downturn in Germany. GDP grew by only 1.5% last year, its slowest rate in five years. The economy shrank in the third quarter, and the latest surveys suggest it barely managed to expand in the fourth. Industrial production showed a 1.9% fall in November, rather than the predicted 0.3% rise. Year-on-year this amounts to a 4.6% drop, the worst performance since the financial crisis. A geared play on global growth... The key to the DAX’s performance, however, is the world outlook. The DAX is…

“Human beings are not well adapted to stockmarkets… our brains started evolving 300,000 years ago. Stock markets have only been with us for 200 years. Yuval Noah Harari suggests in his book Sapiens that what distinguishes between homo sapiens and our other ancient contemporaries whose evolutionary lines have died out is our enthusiasm for... storytelling. Whether a story is even true is less important than just how compelling it is. Human beings also crave certainty, so we would rather buy into a false narrative than accept that the world is a deeply uncertain and unpredictable place… So we seek out interesting-seeming stories and we can barely wait for the conclusion. It is hardly a surprise that so many investors do less well than they might. Addiction to novelty and an…

Three to buy Eland Oil & Gas Shares This Nigeria-focused oil explorer and producer is much more than a speculative energy play. With output expected to increase significantly during the year ahead, this is a “genuinely cash-generative business”. Security remains a concern in a region that has long experienced militant activity, but the company has demonstrated its ability to ride out previous disruption. Further exploration and drilling in the third quarter of 2019 could give the share price a big boost. 105.5p Renewi The Mail on Sunday You might expect a recycling expert to benefit from growing public awareness of the environmental dangers of waste. Yet a run of bad news – including China’s ban on scrap plastic imports and a profit warning – has seen Renewi’s share price fall…

• Last year was “one of the most difficult in Bayer Group’s 155-year history”, says Der Spiegel. Management “clearly underestimated” the risks inherent in its $63bn purchase of the US agriculture-biotech firm Monsanto. With thousands of farmers now suing over allegations that Roundup, Monsanto’s main product, causes cancer, Bayer’s share price has plunged, even though “executives have been almost desperate in their attempts to reassure shareholders”. If the lawsuits leave Bayer with a whopping bill, the group could end up being split into various parts, spelling “the end” of a company central to German corporate history. • Halfords is one of those listed companies that “never quite find their mojo”, says Patrick Hosking in The Times. Despite a “well-known” brand, a “strong” market and an “enormous surge” in cycling, its…

During the California gold rush of the 1840s and 1850s, prospectors rushed to the area to dig for gold. A few individual prospectors managed to strike rich seams and make their fortunes, but most of them went home broke. However, the companies that made the picks and shovels and all the other equipment that every prospector needed, managed to turn a tidy profit without taking anywhere near the same amount of risk as the miners. In a nutshell, that’s the idea behind a “picks-and-shovels” investing strategy. Rather than take the “all-or-nothing” risk of trying to bet on individual pioneers all competing with one another to produce successful products for a particularly groundbreaking new industry, an investor will try to find the companies which supply the underlying technology that is required…

• Freddie Mercury’s ex-fiancée Mary Austin is in line to receive at least £40m in royalties after the success of the late Queen-singer’s biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, says the Daily Mail. Austin met Mercury in 1970. They split up when he came out as gay, but on his death in 1991 he left her 50% of his future earnings, which increased to 75% after his parents died. Queen’s earnings are split four ways between Mercury’s estate and the three remaining band members. The film cost £40m to make and has so far taken £580m at the box office. • Disney’s CEO Bob Iger saw his total pay package rise by 81% last year to $67.5m, says The Times. The 67-year-old’s salary rose from $2.5m to $2.9m. He also collected $8.3m in…

“When you grow up on a farm, you’re always aware of your budget. You never fritter things away. I’m still obsessed about not wasting food and turning off lights. It was always quite cold, because my dad said that central heating made you soft.” Broadcaster Sara Cox (pictured), 44, quoted in The Times “I’m never getting married again. I’m just going to find a woman I don’t like and buy her a house.” British comic actor comedian Stan Laurel (1890-1965), quoted in Time Out “When I was a student I thought £1,000 was a lot of money, now all of a sudden £1m is amazing. Society says youngsters must go to university. Parents think it’s a great thing but it’s a waste of time and money unless you want to…

Fund manager Neil Woodford (pictured) is leading an attempt by shareholders to oust the bosses of construction group Kier following its “botched” rights issue before Christmas, says James Booth in City AM. The surprise rights issue (where a company tries to raise money by issuing more shares) “flopped”: investors bought only 38% of the new shares. The banks that underwrote the issue, including HSBC, Citi and Santander, were then forced to spend millions vacuuming up Kier’s unwanted shares. However, they have been able to offload the unsold shares to institutional investors, with losses offset by the £14m in fees Kier paid for the issue. On the news of the rights issue, shares in Kier crashed to their lowest point in a decade, but have since begun to recover.…

This family farm, which is set in more than 59 acres of farmland in the Annapolis Valley, has belonged to the same family since the 1920s. At its heart is a four-bedroom farmhouse with wraparound decking. It comes with seven outbuildings, including a summer house overlooking the grounds and a guest house. The land includes pasture, hay fields, an apple orchard and 1,500 ft of frontage on the Annapolis River, with a trail leading back to the farm – ideal for a daily walk after an afternoon’s fishing. But can you guess the asking price? Answer on the side of this box.…

Marks & Spencer (LSE: MKS) has seen its earnings-per-share fall by a quarter since 2011. However, chairman Archie Norman may be able to repeat the success he had with Asda in the 1990s by trimming the number of M&S outlets and updating the clothing selection more rapidly. Note that the food business, which accounts for about 60% of sales, is less vulnerable to online competition than clothing: only a small percentage of food sales have so far gone online as people want to be able to see and feel the products and they needs to be delivered quickly. On just 11.2 times 2019 earnings, M&S looks cheap. It offers a yield of almost 7%, so investors will be paid handsomely to wait for a turnaround. Next (LSE: NXT) has also…

• What does your company do? AndCo transforms spaces in pubs, cafes, hotel lobbies and restaurants into co-working spaces during the working week. For £20 a month, members have unlimited access to more than 60 venues across London, with new ones added every week. Our vision is to revitalise these venues, many of which sit empty during working hours. • What’s been your company’s greatest achievement so far? Our vision for the future of flexible working has really captured the imagination of many venues and workers. Getting so many of them involved in such a short space of time has been a great achievement. We’ve also built the AndCo team from the ground up, with a mix of full-time employees and freelancers. Some live in other countries, so they’re true…

Bereaved partners could be incurring unnecessary tax bills because they fail to take advantage of an Isa transfer allowance, says Edmund Greaves in Moneywise. Since 6 April 2015, the additional permitted subscription, or APS allowance, has allowed a surviving partner to expand their Isa allowance to include all of the funds from their deceased spouse’s accounts without incurring a tax charge. For example, if a person dies with £50,000 in an Isa, the remaining spouse would be eligible for a larger-than-usual Isa allowance of £70,000 for that tax year rather than the standard £20,000. Up to 150,000 married Isa holders die every year, says the Tax Incentivised Savings Association. Yet just 21,000 people took advantage of the scheme in 2017-2018, according to a freedom of information request submitted by insurer…

We aim to find high-quality companies with both a good starting yield and real dividend growth over the long term. Businesses with a sustainable competitive advantage and strong pricing power are best positioned to offer these. Sources of competitive advantage range from strong brands that inspire loyalty to products protected by patents. The assets underpinning these advantages are often intangible; they can include strong network effects between users or the value of software developed internally. These companies therefore often have the added benefit of being asset-light as well as cash generative, requiring little reinvestment to maintain the asset base and providing shareholders with a recurring stream of dividends from the cash flows. Once we identify these stocks, we invest at sensible valuations. Our portfolio is diversified by both industry and…

Some called him “the high priest of ha-ha”; to Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary, he was “the Grand Master Yoda of the low-fare airlines”. But there’s a case to be made that Herb Kelleher, who died this month aged 87, was “the best CEO in America”, says Fortune. The founder of Southwest Airlines is credited with reinventing an industry: he was the capitalist who “democratised the skies”, spawning dozens of imitators, says The Wall Street Journal. But Herb, as he was known to everyone, also showed what enlightened leadership can do for the bottom line. Famously decent to all his employees, he grew Southwest into America’s biggest discount carrier boasting a continuous annual profit streak dating back to 1973. An easy-going ethos Kelleher’s persona as “a chain-smoking devotee of Wild Turkey…

2016 Gigondas, Domaine La Bouïssiere, Southern Rhône, France I am kicking this list off with a wine which profoundly moved my palate. There is an elemental depth to this blood-drenched red which is staggering. It shows rocky, grainy tannins, epic density of plum and damson fruit and a velvety, brocaded texture which sends a shiver down my spine. This is a truly great Gigondas and it will remind you that while you are a mere mortal, this vineyard will make masterful wines like this for centuries to come. I cannot recommend this wine enough if you adore awesome Grenache. 2017 Old Hands, Monastrell Joven Ecológico, Bodegas La Purisima, Spain The bottle is hefty, the label is modern and arty and the flavour is arresting, with a degree of flair and…

“It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that the very first electric bikes were as big as houses, cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and needed to be charged every 300ft, says Steve Hogarty in City AM. But since their introduction, the technology underlying electric bikes has been continually refined, and the Hummingbird Electric “is engineered to within an inch of its little life”. Hummingbird “made waves” when it created the world’s lightest folding bike – weighing in at just 6.9kg. And now the electric motor-assisted version comfortably claims the title of the world’s lightest electric folding bike at just 10.3kg, which is still lighter than some non-electric Bromptons. “It’s like riding a carbon-fibre feather,” says Hogarty. “Strap your lights to it and you’ll worry you’ve thrown it out of…

Mr Five Per Cent The Many Lives of Calouste Gulbenkian, The World’s Richest Man Jonathan Conlin Profile, £25 “A dealmaker for the age,” Calouste Gulbenkian was the richest man in the world by the time of his death in 1955 owing to his role in brokering deals between oil companies and oil-rich kingdoms in the Middle East. This biography tells his story, one “of a businessman playing off great powers in the Middle East, exploiting loopholes in the world’s financial architecture, avoiding accountability, making a fortune for himself, and spending it on a life of luxury”, says Oliver Bullough in The Guardian. Gulbenkian is not an easy subject as his single-mindedness in the pursuit of money “renders him rather dull”, says Gerard DeGroot in The Times. However, Conlin “somehow constructs…

• Andy Murray has made millions from playing tennis and lives a high-flying lifestyle, says Anne Diamond in the Sunday Express. But there is one thing money can’t buy – giving his two very young daughters the “precious memory of their dad as a champ, at the top of his game”. Murray (pictured) wanted them to witness “the vision of their father as Britain’s top sportsman, the best tennis player we’ve ever had, an absolute winner”. Sadly, he cannot serve that up, having announced his imminent retirement from the sport due to a hip injury that has troubled him over the years. Still, as former tennis ace Billie Jean King tweeted, having inspired future generations, his greatest impact on the world may still be to come. “On Christmas Day, 13…

A big, new danger appeared in Congress this month: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the newest representative of New York’s 14th district. At 29, she is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress; she will doubtless be there for decades to come. Eighteen months ago, she was working as a waitress. Then, even though her opponent outspent her 15-to-1, she won the race to sit in the House of Representatives. Ocasio-Cortez has a pleasant look about her. We’d probably like her if we met her. But she is clearly a danger to herself, her constituents, and to the nation. When the mainstream flimflam financial policies fail, people look for scapegoats and solutions on the edges. Ocasio-Cortez fits the bill. There is, she believes, no problem that a government programme can’t solve. Got healthcare…

£12.50 The daily pollution charge payable by drivers who do not meet emissions standards for access to the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) in central London from 8 April. An expected 2.5 million motorists a year will be hit by the new fee, which comes on top of the £11.50-a-day congestion charge. €2.8m The cost of proposed restoration work to the gold-leaf roof of Château de Chambord, in the Loire, in time for celebrations marking 500 years since construction began. President Macron gave the nod to the project before changing his mind over concerns it would further enrage the gilets jaunes protesters. $40.7m How much British Formula One racing champion Lewis Hamilton has paid for a penthouse flat in New York’s Tribeca district – his second property purchase in the area…