Indholdsfortegnelse for 1046 i MoneyWeek

“Losing money on an investment is painful, but it can teach you some valuable lessons” The Deliveroo initial public offering (IPO) was meant to be the moment at which London unleashed a tech unicorn to rival those constantly springing up across the Atlantic. Instead it was a dreadful flop. Matthew Lynn looks at three lessons the City could learn from the disappointment on page 16, but for me the key point is his first one – it’s all about the price. It’s heartening to see that even in a market like this, where some people will pay millions of dollars for the non-exclusive right to gaze upon a digital artwork by a hitherto unknown artist (see page 46 for Bill’s take on this), they’ll still turn their noses up at…

The founding members of Wentworth, one of England’s most prestigious golf clubs, are leaving en masse after its owners announced a 50% rise in fees to £20,000 a year, says Robert Mendick in The Daily Telegraph. This is just the “latest row to beset” Wentworth since it was sold in 2014 for £135m to Chinese company Reignwood. Departing founding members who could no longer justify the cost include a “Wentworth stalwart who has been playing at the club since 1963” and a former pilot who has been a member of the club for over 40 years. Credit Suisse cancelled its directors’ bonuses, slashed its dividend by two-thirds and announced the departure of two senior executives after it revealed a £3.4bn loss resulting from its exposure to the collapse of the…

It has been a rotten start to the year for gold, says Joe Wallace in The Wall Street Journal. The yellow metal fell by 9.5% in the first quarter. You could have done worse, but you would have needed to buy “Turkey’s lira” or “US government bonds”. Prices peaked at $2,069/oz last August, but have slid ever since. Gold was trading around $1,745/oz this week. A US recovery reduces gold’s appeal as a safe haven, while higher bond yields also lower demand as gold offers no income. Gold’s falls follow two years of excellent performance, says Emily Gosden in The Times. It rose by 18% in 2019 and 25% last year. This setback might not last. James Steel of HSBC notes that demand for physical gold dropped to an 11-year…

The EU’s (excluding Britain) GDP growth matched that of America at the start of this century, but it has lagged since the 2007 financial crisis, says The Economist. The 2010-2012 euro crisis, an ageing population and an insistence on fiscal austerity have all sapped the continent’s vitality. Europe’s new €750bn recovery fund marks an important change of direction, but stimulus efforts remain “far too modest”: European budget deficits will average about half of the US total this year, even though Europe has lower average government debt than America. Growth is forecast to be 3.7% this year, compared with 6%-7% in America. Joe Biden’s spending splurge risks overheating the US economy, but Europe has the opposite problem.…

Asian markets have enjoyed a record first quarter for initial public offerings (IPOs) thanks to a “flood of liquidity during the pandemic, super-low interest rates and rallying stockmarkets”, says Julia Fioretti on Bloomberg. Asian firms raised $49.3bn, a 154% increase over the same period in 2020. But the “frenzy” is likely to die down soon. A “global rotation” away from the pricey tech and healthcare stocks that have dominated markets is dampening sentiment, as is a crackdown by Beijing on “monopolistic practices” by giant companies. This caused the cancellation of Ant Group’s IPO just before its debut, and could see more tech firms postponing or cancelling their IPOs.…

Car manufacturer Volkswagen has ended up with egg on its face after the US arm of the company “issued a false announcement claiming it was changing its name to ‘Voltswagen of America’”, says Hannah Godfrey in City AM. The early April Fool’s Day “stunt” was “meant to call attention to its electric-vehicle efforts”, which have seen the company “stepping up its switch to fully electric vehicles in a bid to catch up with Tesla”. Instead, the joke “fell flat” on social media, with some commentators “recalling the company’s diesel-emissions scandal and years of misleading customers and regulators”. VW’s supposed “rebranding” went beyond a simple one-off stunt as the company “stood by the announcement for several days”, says Callum Jones in The Times. During this time its shares rose, only to…

The £7bn stockmarket flotation of the food-delivery app Deliveroo was not quite the worst of all time. True, it dropped 30% from its issue price, slumping from 390p to 275p within the first few minutes of trading, hence earning its pasting as a “Floperoo”. But of all the listings since 1999, there are ten that did even worse. Even so, it was hardly a great success. More than 85% of initial public offerings (IPOs) over the last 20 years closed the first day of trading above their issue price; just 3% closed below the price they were sold at. Sometimes firms recover from that. Ocado dropped 7% below its issue price when it was floated, but has gone on to rise tenfold since then. Others, though, sink into obscurity. Whatever…

The temporary blockage of the Suez Canal a couple of weeks ago by the unfortunate cargo container Ever Given is now behind us. Yet the story has helped to draw attention to shipping more generally. You might be surprised to learn that there are huge traffic jams at ports that pre-date the wedging of the Suez. Ports on the west coast of America have been clogged up since the turn of the year. As Brendan Murray of Bloomberg reports, the average waiting time for ships to unload at ports in California has tripled since November. Meanwhile, the price of shipping containers has rocketed in recent months. “There are huge traffic jams at sea that predate the Suez story” Much of this is down to the peculiar nature of the recession…

Don’t let globalisation run aground Editorial The Economist The container ship that got stuck in the Suez canal seems symbolic, says The Economist. Since the 1990s supply chains have been run to maximise efficiency, but there are growing concerns that long, complex supply chains are a “source of vulnerability”. Witness the scramble for PPE, testing kits and vaccines. Suddenly governments are talking of resilience and self-reliance. In the past year, countries have passed around 140 special trade restrictions. But while “self-reliance” sounds safe, we should remember that food, clothes, phones and jabs all depend on global supply chains. Calls for self-reliance also misconstrue the “balance between the costs of interdependence, which are brief and visible, and its benefits, which trickle in month after month unheralded”. Duplicating shared production chains would…

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs To tackle climate change, rich nations are promising to end fossil fuel use in 29 years. That will be costly, says Bjørn Lomborg. The UN “cheerfully” noted that its climate goals were almost achieved in 2020 with the global lockdowns. This year, we will need the equivalent of two global lockdowns. We’ll need three in 2022, and 11 every year from 2030. This will cost tens of trillions of dollars annually. Rich countries want to make the world’s poor pay the costs through carbon tariffs – the UK is pushing the idea as akey priority of its G7 presidency. The idea is to stop businesses fleeing across borders as energy costs are driven up. But such tariffs will also make it harder for the developing world to compete because…

Although there is much talk of rising interest rates in the coming years, investors seeking an income shouldn’t get too excited. The yield on ten-year gilts is still a measly 0.8% and very few mainstream savings accounts offer interest rates much above 1%. Corporate bond yields have started rising but the yield on the iShares UK corporate bond UCITS exchange-traded fund with maturities up to five years is still below 2%. Central bankers, especially in the trend-setting US, seem keen to keep yields as close to zero as possible to reflate economies. In these circumstances income-hungry investors are forced to take more risk. Who passes the Covid-19 test? “We now know how lending funds cope with a recession” Lending out money to higher-risk entities does generate a much higher yield…

Get it wrong when filling in the paperwork to claim child benefit and you could face several problems. You might have to fill in a self-assessment tax return in order to hand back part of your child benefit, or you could end up with a diminished state pension. But don’t assume the easiest option is simply not to claim the money instead. That too could have long-term consequences for your finances. In January 2013 the government introduced the High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC). Anyone, or their partner, who gets child benefit and earns over £50,000 a year must hand back some of the money. Once you earn £50,000 a year child benefit is withdrawn at a rate of 1% for every £100 you earn over that threshold. So if…

For the best part of two decades, pension savers in their 40s have counted on being able to access private pension cash at the age of 55. But in just seven years’ time, that is set to change. Earlier this year, the government confirmed that from 6 April 2028, the earliest age at which you can take money from your savings will rise to 57, in line with the rise in the state pension age to 67 that takes full effect at the same time. For anyone hoping to take cash from a pension at a relatively early age, understanding the detail of this change and acting accordingly is vital. A mis-step now could see you forced to change your plans. “A mistake now could spoil your retirement plans” Crucially,…

One of my most successful tips has been shorting bitcoin. If you had taken my advice to sell it short in January 2018 (issue 880), you would have made a profit of £1,744 after closing the position in April 2019. I then suggested shorting it again in July 2019, which would have produced a small profit of £250 after the position was closed in January 2020. However, over the past year the cryptocurrency has been on a tear, rising from just under $7,000 at the beginning of April 2020 to the current price of $58,000. So is this surge due to a genuine shift in the fundamentals? Or will history repeat itself? Many people clearly believe there have been two major changes in the fundamentals of the currency justifying not…

The pandemic continues to pose near-term risks as new variants of the virus and rising infection rates prompt governments to extend restrictions. However, vaccines and continued monetary and fiscal-policy stimulus bode well for global growth and will be supportive of Japanese equities. Several themes present themselves. Clean energy and environmental-efficiency are areas where Japan has some very competitive companies. Covid-19 has also accelerated trends in e-commerce and digitalisation. As profits recover, companies will prioritise those areas. “Coconala is benefiting from structural changes in Japan’s labour market” Above all, Japan continues to offer a wealth of under-researched mid- and small-cap growth companies, where we typically find better business models and returns on equity (a key gauge of profitability), and management has more incentives in terms of shareholder returns. Active managers like…

2019 Château Climens, Asphodèle, Grand Vin Blanc Sec, Bordeaux, France £26.50, bbr.com Climens’s owner Bérénice Lurton makes some of the greatest sweet wines in the world, but her illustrious property had never made dry whites until recently. In 2018 she launched a dry white wine named Asphodèle, after the delicate, wild lilies which grow in the chalky soils on the estate. Biodynamically certified since 2014, this 100% semillon wine is unlike anything I have tasted and the 2019 vintage is a gem. Semillon as a monovarietal dry wine is, arguably, at its finest in select cuvées from the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, Australia. Wineries such as Tyrrell’s, Mount Pleasant and Brokenwood make celestial creations with naturally low alcohol and little oak intervention. They start life water white and…

David Hannah, the 60-year-old founder of property tax advice firm Cornerstone, is facing a large fine for avoiding paying stamp duty on the purchase of a home of his own, reports David Byers in The Times. Hannah bought the £765,000 house in Leicestershire in 2011 using a scheme described by HMRC in court documents as “a clear attempt at stamp duty avoidance”. Hannah paid a 5% deposit of £38,250, which was listed with Land Registry as the official purchase price. The sellers then received the remainder of the proceeds by redeeming an annuity that was registered in the British Virgin Islands. Hannah had been appealing against a 2019 verdict by a first tier tribunal, but the upper tax tribunal upheld the initial judgment and ordered Hannah to repay the £30,600…

We are a quarter of the way through 2021 and somehow the stockmarket rally is still “in one piece”, says Katie Martin in the Financial Times. The past three months have brought plenty of market madness, from non-fungible tokens and bitcoin to the GameStop share-price surge. The recent Archegos Capital debacle, which revealed “a deep risk-management crisis” at some banks, barely caused stocks to pause for breath. Now more than ever before, as long as markets have “central-bank largesse” to fall back on, everything else seems a sideshow. The dollar confounds expectations America’s S&P 500 index finished the first quarter with a 5.8% rise. Germany’s Dax and Japan’s Topix indices both gained 9%, while the FTSE 100 rose by 4%. Oil has enjoyed “its best start to a year since…

“China is deadly serious about taking back control of Taiwan... I visited Taiwan in 2019... The degree of complacency was startling. It’s not a... conversation most people want to have. Taiwan has survived this long by being unobjectionable and that sentiment runs deep... Taipei is... full of industrious people who [just] want... to get on with their lives. The domestic tech sector... is a marvel and is the true prize for any aggressor. A blitzkrieg-type attack would place China at the top of the global semiconductor industry... estimates of [a conflict in] 2025 seem naive to me. [From China’s point of view why] wait... for your competitor to be ready to deter your advances, it makes sense to present a fait accompli before that date... we could wake up [any…

Three to buy CMC Markets The Times CMC Markets “has been one of the big winners from the Covid-19 crisis” as “bored Brits with savings” flocked to online trading platforms. Sales for the year to 31 March are set to reach £400m, exceeding expectations. CMC’s rally “has some way to run yet” as the market volatility it has been thriving on won’t end soon and the economic recovery is just beginning. New customers are unlikely to “ditch their trading accounts”. 511p Entain The Daily Telegraph “Investors are waking up to the fact that Britain’s gaming companies have a lot to offer their American rivals.” British firms have had a “head start” in developing technology necessary for online betting because until recently betting on sports and games was banned in the…

Deliveroo’s initial public offering (IPO) “flopped” last week amid “growing scepticism” about the food-delivery platform’s business model, says The Times. Not only was it forced to accept a “bottom-end” valuation of £7.6bn, much lower than the £8.8bn some analysts had predicted, but its shares then also fell by a quarter. This was due to the fact that the company makes a loss, but also to worries “over the employment status of its riders, fears over demand when restaurants and pubs reopen” and “governance concerns”. Several City institutions had declared that “they would not be buying shares in the IPO”owing to a “dual-share structure” that gives founder Will Shu’s shares 20 times as many votes as ordinary ones. Deliveroo is already being rebranded as “Floperoo” or “Deliver-oops”, say Rob Davies and…

With Israel facing the prospect of a fifth election in just two years and “yet more political deadlock”, Israeli president Reuven Rivlin threw current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a political lifeline by giving him 28 days to try and form a governing coalition, says Neri Zilber in the Financial Times. The president admits, however, that no party leader has “a realistic chance” of forming a government that will win the confidence of Israel’s parliament, even if it was his legal obligation to ask someone to do so. The move comes two weeks after the latest election delivered a “deeply fractured” parliament, with none of the main parties winning a majority. The political uncertainty is compounded by a legal drama taking place at the same time, says Isabel Kershner in The…

• Bet365’s boss Denise Coates (pictured) took home Britain’s biggest ever salary of £421m last year, almost equal to the combined pay for all FTSE 100 chief executives, says The Daily Telegraph. Her salary works out as £1.3m a day, before being topped up with a £48m dividend payment from her 50% stake in the business she founded in 2000. Hedge-fund manager Chris Hohn held the previous record, after paying himself £343m for 2020. • Defence and aerospace company BAE Systems gave its chief executive, Charles Woodburn, a £100,000 pay rise, taking his salary to just over £1.1m, along with a £2m “golden handcuffs” share deal after miner Rio Tinto tried to poach him, says The Sunday Times. Woodburn has been viewed as a “troubleshooter” since joining BAE in 2017,…

The simplest way to measure the value of a company is to use its stockmarket capitalisation – the value of all its outstanding shares. However, this may not always provide a useful reflection of all the claims that different groups of investors have on a business. For example, a company may be heavily funded with debt rather than equity. Conversely, it may have a lot of unused cash on its balance sheet offsetting some of that debt. It might also have preferred stock in issue (securities that rank above ordinary shares, but below debt), or some of its subsidiaries may be partly owned by other investors (known as minority interests). These last two factors are usually less significant compared with debt and cash, but could be important in some situations.…

“I had literally been living on beans when I signed a recording contract. The advance was £60,000, a sizeable sum in 1984… I went from living hand-to-mouth to flying on Concorde, staying in posh hotels and living in New York. Because I had come from a relatively prosperous background, I adapted within about 0.3 of a second.” Rev Richard Coles (pictured), former pop star with The Communards, quoted on telegraph.co.uk “I’m not the dumb, ditzy blonde you saw on [American 2000s reality television series] The Simple Life… But I understand why people would think that, because I was good at pretending. I’m proud of the empire I’ve built… [which has] grossed more than $2bn, so I must be doing something right.” Socialite Paris Hilton, great-granddaughter of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad…

wsj.com We were once fluent in the art of reading nonverbal cues in the office, says Rachel Feintzeig. We know just by looking if our boss is disappointed or a colleague stressed. Now that we’re all communicating by email or Zoom, it’s much trickier. A terse reply in an email might be a signal of dissatisfaction; it might just mean your interlocutor is busy. Ellipses might signal nothing at all, but younger generations tend to read them as signalling sarcasm. If you’re vexed byan email, “assume good intent” and “let it pass” three times before having a candid chat. Then, “a phone call is worth a thousand emails”. As for video meetings, the gestures “we’ve been raised on our whole lives” are no longer meaningful. Staring directly into someone’s eyes…

■ “Homeowners with draughty properties risk being locked out of new mortgages aslenders have begun restricting deals for homes that are not energy-efficient,” warns Kate Palmer in The Times. Paragon Bank has launched a 3.99% five-year fixed buy-to-let mortgage only available to homes with a high energy-efficiency rating. “It is the first sign that lenders are getting ready for proposed government rules that will ban homeowners from renting out or selling inefficient properties.” ■ Carers and family members can have more control of an elderly person’s financial affairs with a new debit card to stop them being targeted by crooks. The GuardianCard means “carers can get access to an elderly person’s account via physical or virtual cards, and can pay bills and shop on their behalf”, says Angelique Ruzicka on…

• Google, Facebook and other technology companies are profiting from scams illegally targeting savers’ pensions, a committee of cross-party MPs has warned. The Work and Pensions Select Committee wants ministers to introduce new rules forcing technology companies to do more to vet the businesses that advertise on their services, just as newspapers and broadcasters are required to make checks. The lack of checks enables scammers to use the internet to recruit victims for pension frauds, the MPs argue. • The campaign to win compensation for hundreds of thousands of women who say they have lost out unfairly due to a rise in the state pension age has suffered another setback. Several courts have already sided with the government in the dispute, dismissing claims that a rise in the state pension…

Until recently companies that wanted to be listed on the stockmarket would offer shares to the public in a flotation, or initial public offering (IPO). This is usually a protracted and expensive process (investment bankers charge high fees), while the company also has to disclose detailed financial information. As a result, many companies, including technology firms, are increasingly going public by doing deals with special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). SPACs, sometimes known as “blank cheque companies”, are shell firms floated on the stock exchange with no underlying business except to buy other companies. In theory, being bought by a SPAC is a much cheaper and quicker way for a firm to achieve a stockmarket listing than with an IPO. However, an increasing number of experts are warning that these deals…

Restaurant Group (LSE: RTN), which owns Wagamama and Frankie & Benny’s, had a difficult 2020. Sales more than halved as restaurants were forced to close, but when it was allowed to open, Wagamama delivered trading “well ahead” of managers’ expectations, says Harshil Patel on The Motley Fool. A £175m share placing, announced in March, should allow the group to capitalise on growth opportunities to come. Pent-up demand among consumers after months of being indoors bodes well. The shares are up by 222% in a year.…

Gina Champion-Cain was born in 1964 and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, before moving to San Diego in 1987 to attend law school at the University of San Diego. Switching to business, she graduated with an MBA and moved into property development, buying and reselling distressed properties. After a spell working for the property firm Koll, she struck out on her own, setting up American National Investments in 1997. Her property development efforts led her into the restaurant business and she set up the Patio chain of restaurants in San Diego. She also launched a clothing chain, Luv Surf Boutique. What was the scam? By 2012, Champion-Cain’s various companies were losing large sums of money so she set up an investment scheme that promised to deliver large guaranteed returns…

Going… Sotheby’s in New York is to offer the “fabled and elusive” 1933 Double Eagle gold coin on 8 June, as part of its “Three Treasures – Collected by Stuart Weitzman” sale. The $20 coin (pictured) was the last US gold coin intended for circulation before President Franklin Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard later that year. All of the coins were ordered to be melted down, but a few were stolen from the US Mint. In 1996, the US government seized the present example, and after a complicated legal battle permitted it to be the sole 1933 Double Eagle coin for private ownership. It is valued at between $10m and $15m. The other two “treasures” in Weitzman’s collection are an 1856 British Guiana one-cent magenta stamp, with…

• Prince Harry (pictured) is now a “chimpo”, says Jane Moore in The Sun. That’s how Americans refer to his role as “chief impact officer” at BetterUp, the life-coaching and mental-health company that has taken him on. “This is just one of the trendy, La-La Land job titles that are slowly making their way across the Atlantic to these shores.” Another is “Cido (chief inclusion and diversity officer, as you ask) and word has it that the Queen is about to appoint one after the recent, highly controversial ‘recollections may vary’ incident. Others include CHO (chief happiness officer), data ethnographers (nope, me neither) and, my absolute favourite of all, a ‘mood manager’. Imagine it. A plush office, company car and six-figure salary, and all you have to do when someone…

£479m How much was stolen by fraudsters last year in “push-payment scams”, where victims are tricked into transferring money to the fraudsters – a 5% rise on 2019 and the largest loss ever recorded, according to banking body UK Finance. The number of people who fell victim to these scams rose 22% to almost 150,000. £570,321 How much the government spent last year on a fleet of eight cars, run by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, to drive ministerial briefcases and papers around Whitehall, says HuffPost UK, following a Freedom of Information Request. $50 The price for a box of Omakase strawberries in New York, where the “Tesla of strawberries” is the city’s “most in-demand new produce”, says The Daily Telegraph. The Japanese variety, now grown in neighbouring New…

Action film Godzilla vs. Kong (pictured) gave US cinemas a boost this weekend after it drew the largest crowds the industry has seen since the pandemic began, says Kelly Gilblom on Bloomberg. The monster movie made sales of around $32.2m between Friday and Sunday in North America, almost double that of Wonder Woman 1984, the previous best pandemic-era opening weekend. A lucky British lottery player became the fifth-biggest winner in UK National Lottery history this week after claiming a £122m EuroMillions jackpot, says Andy Hayes on Sky News, making them the 976th richest person in the country, according to the Sunday Times rich list.…

When Mexican telecoms billionaire Carlos Slim’s América Móvil took a majority stake in Telekom Austria seven years ago, his plan was to use it to bolster his presence in central and eastern Europe, says Wirtschaftswoche. He hasn’t exactly made lightning progress: sales have risen by an annual average of 2% since then. Still, the stock remains worth a look. Operations in Austria, which the group dominates, are growing as 5G networks and licences are rolled out; the Belarussian division is expanding so fast that it now accounts for a fifth of group operating profits; and cost savings facilitated by América Móvil have helped Telekom Austria improve its margins. This Eastern Europe play also yields 3.5%.…

Korean electronics company LG is giving up on making smartphones after it admitted that it can’t cope with increasingly intense competition, says James Titcomb in The Daily Telegraph. The news is a major milestone as LG was an early mover in the mobile market, beginning production in 1995 and later pioneering the use of a touchscreen even before Apple launched the iPhone. While its market share peaked in 2009, even in 2013 it was still the world’s third-biggest mobile-phone manufacturer. LG’s departure adds to agrowing “graveyard” of phone makers such as Nokia, BlackBerry and Motorola, which previously dominated the industry before falling away. A penchant for gimmicks While the Korean giant’s devices have “dwindled in popularity”, retaining barely a 2% share of the market, the halt to production still triggered…

The rioting that took place in Northern Ireland over the Easter weekend was “relatively small-scale”, but its significance “should not be downplayed”, says The Guardian. During nightly violence, loyalist youths threw petrol bombs and injured police officers, revealing a “dangerous sense of grievance in unionist communities”. The catalyst was anger at the Public Prosecution Service’s decision not to prosecute anyone for breaking Covid-19 rules by attending the funeral of IRA man Bobby Storey last year; the wider context is mounting discontent at the fallout from Brexit and the despised Northern Ireland protocol. Last month, Boris Johnson “kicked the can down the road” by “unilaterally extending the grace period before the full implementation of checks on goods going into Northern Ireland”. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is planning a legal challenge,…

In less than a month, voters in large parts of the UK will go to the polls for mayoral, local and devolved administration elections. The most closely watched contest is the by-election in Hartlepool, caused by the resignation of Mike Hill. With £102,654 matched on Betfair, the Conservative Jill Mortimer is favourite to win at 1.78 (56.2%), with Labour’s Dr Paul Williams (pictured) in second place at 2.3 (43.5%). The Northern Independence Party is in third place at 75 (1.3%). On the face of it, this should be an easy win for Labour since they have held the seat continuously since 1964. Indeed, even during the otherwise disastrous 2019 election, where many parts of the “Red Wall” collapsed, they managed to retain the seat with a 3,595 majority. The Tories…

The SoftBank Vision Fund paid its UK-based staff an average of $745,000 in the 12 months to the end of March last year, despite presiding over a failed attempt to float shared office space provider WeWork, says Simon Duke in The Times. According to filings, the investment group handed $146m to the 196 employees of Mayfair-based SB Investment Advisers, which guides the $100bn Vision Fund on how to allocate its capital. The firm’s 52 “front-office” staff are believed to have received an “outsized cut of the awards, with some dealmakers being given multimillion-dollar payouts”. However, the payout excluded its three directors. They shared $20.1m over the period, including $15.5m for Rajeev Misra, whose annual pay doubled. SoftBank suffered “heavy losses” in stumping up a $10bn bailout of WeWork following the…

“We could be on the brink of a boom for British companies. There is going to be a huge rebound starting this summer and into next year as the economy reopens and people start spending.” Veteran investor Richard Buxton is upbeat on both the UK economy and the stock market, he tells The Daily Telegraph’s Sam Benstead. Buxton has been managing the Jupiter UK Alpha fund since 2003 (the name of the fund has changed under various owners, but it is backed by the same team). Since launch it has returned around 250%. The fund owns around 35 large and medium-sized UK-listed companies, and Buxton sees plenty of opportunity. “Shares are clearly cheap at the moment and so is the pound – just look at how many companies are being…

cityam.com That flexible working will become more common post-pandemic is no longer in dispute, but “the point and purpose of the office is”, say Dr Eliza Filby and Joanna Swash, CEO of Moneypenny. A survey by Moneypenny, which provides virtual receptions and PAs to businesses across the UK, found that 53% of UK companies have “accelerated their use of technology” by a year; 22% said by more than five years. What will this new futuristic office look like? Collaboration is likely to be the “central pull”. So the rationale for turning the office into a kind of playpen, designed to keep you there as long as possible, is no more. Instead, the office will be “geared for interaction, learning and concentration” – it will become like a “cross between a…

Many luxury-goods stocks are in fact a portfolio of different brands that offer a degree of diversification by product and region. This works well for investors as diversification is key to healthy long-term returns. A top example is French giant LVMH (Paris: MC), amegabrand conglomerate that businessman Bernard Arnault began building in the late 1980s. It began with the Louis Vuitton malletier and Moët & Chandon champagne maker; labels including Givenchy, Berluti, Bulgari and Christian Dior have since been added. This is a powerhouse of top fashion brands that has strong defensive qualities with excellent scope for above-average longterm rewards. Another option is the Swiss group Richemont (Zurich: CFR), owner of labels such as Cartier, Montblanc, Dunhill and Van Cleef & Arpels. Some see the shares as relatively undervalued compared…

The annual £20,000 Isa allowance “will be frozen for at least another year and sources at HM Treasury have now hinted it will stay there for the longer term”, says Harry Brennan in The Daily Telegraph. It is thought that the allowance may be frozen for five years, leaving the four million people who reach the maximum £20,000 each year having to look for alternatives for any extra cash they have. “It comes as households are saving larger sums of cash than normal after being stuck at home for months,” says Brennan. So where else can you put your savings to protect them from the taxman? You could consider paying more into your pension. You can receive tax relief on up to £40,000 a year paid into your pension. Just…

Some 260,000 Britons dipped into their pension savings for the first time in 2020. Many of these savers will want to keep saving but their ability to do so has been curtailed by the rules on pension contribution allowances. While the maximum you may save in a private pension each year is usually £40,000, or the total value of your income if this is lower, adifferent cap applies once you have begun accessing your savings. This “money purchase annual allowance”, or MPAA, isjust £4,000 a year. In the past, this rule has only worried a small number of people, since most of those beginning to withdraw money from their pension funds have been moving into retirement and stopping contributions altogether. However, many of those who made withdrawals last year will…

The past fortnight has been kind to my five long tips, with four of them climbing. Transport group National Express rose from 297p to 331p, cruise-ship operator Norwegian Cruise Line increased from $28.35 to $29.71, American homebuilder DR Horton climbed from $84.49 to $92.64 and construction firm Morgan Sindall Group jumped from 1,686p to 1,804p. The only share that didn’t appreciate was media group ITV, which remained unchanged at 122p. Overall my long tips are making total net profits on £6,686, up from £4,531 a fortnight ago. My five short tips have also gone in my favour, with three out of five falling. Electric-lorry manufacturer Nikola fell from $15.55 to $12.83, online grocer Ocado went down from 2,068p to 2,059p, and electric vehicle maker Plug Power declined from $38.91 to…

Amedeo Air Four Plus (LSE: AA4) is a plane-leasing fund hit by the virus-induced crisis in the airline industry. In late February it said it was terminating its contract with its fund manager, Nimrod Capital, says Gavin Lumsden on Citywire. Amedeo’s board had been engaged in a dispute with Nimrod for a year over its £6.1m annual fee. Amedeo suspended dividends in April 2020 after lockdowns cut business for Thai Airways and Emirates, the two national airlines that leased its planes. Thai Airways has gone bankrupt. The stock has slid by 26% in 12 months.…

Don’t stint on the speakers There’s no point splashing out on quality kit (such as the Air Force Zero, see below) only to attach it to substandard speakers, says Ken Kessler in The Daily Telegraph. The WAMM Master Chronosonic speakers by Wilson Audio are the ones to go for. They’re over 84 inches tall and finished in an elegant lacquer “that wouldn’t shame a Bugatti”. Wilson Audio produces some of the most respected and accomplished speakers in the business. They take around a day to install, but promise to be worth the wait – and the eye-watering price tag. Around £700,000, hifilounge.co.uk. The Bentley of headphones Focal produces high-fidelity, closed-back headphones designed and manufactured in France. The special edition Radiance pair for Bentley is the result of teamwork between their…

It’s not often that you get to “try before you buy” when it comes to auctions, but Sotheby’s has embraced the digital realm to enable royal wannabes to do just that. Last week, the auction house launched a filter on social-media app Instagram, in partnership with London-based firm Popular Studio, that allows users to “try on” an auctioned headpiece against the backdrop of the Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi in Turin, Italy – formerly a royal hunting lodge for the House of Savoy. The tiara itself is no less a feat of fashion wizardry. Believed to have been created in the 19th century by Turin-court jeweller Musy Padre e Figli, using natural pearls and diamonds, it was likely presented to Maria Vittoria dal Pozzo, an Italian noblewoman, as a wedding…

There are not many benefits to growing old. We can hardly think of any at all. You can’t play professional basketball. You won’t get the leading man role in community theatre. You have aches and pains everywhere. And you can’t figure out how to buy bitcoin – or why you’d want to. Yet when it comes to politics and markets, age may have at least one redeeming benefit. There’s a good chance the old-timer has seen this show before. It was on an old, boxy TV screen that we learned – in the 1970s – that mortgage rates had hit 15%. It was on paper – in a book –that we learned how to value a stock by estimating future earnings and discounting to present value. And it was by…