The very private life of Sir Chris Hohn – the man paid £1m a day

The hedge fund manager earns Britain’s biggest salary. He also avoids meat, likes yoga and supports Extinction Rebellion

Hedge fund manager Sir Chris Hohn once made a point of telling a high court judge that he was an “unbelievable moneymaker”. This week Hohn proved his point – definitively – when it was revealed that he paid himself just shy of £1m-a-day last year.

Hohn collected $479m (£343m) in annual dividend payments from his The Children’s Investment (TCI) fund in the biggest ever personal payday in the UK after doubling profits at his Mayfair hedge fund, run from an office a couple of doors down from Louis Vuitton’s flagship store.

Continue reading...

City firms made plans in Brexit run-up to move assets worth £100bn to EU – survey

Data from EY highlights last-minute transfers in order to hold on to European business

City firms revealed in the final months of 2020 that they planned to shift nearly £100bn in assets to the EU, taking the total value of assets lost to the bloc since the Brexit vote to £1.3 trillion, according to a new survey.

The data from consulting group EY pointed to a last-minute push by firms before 31 December after the UK-EU trade deal did not offer concessions for the UK’s dominant financial services sector. It forced companies to move staff and assets to the continent in order to continue serving EU customers.

Continue reading...

Oil firms should disclose carbon output, says BlackRock

World’s biggest investor wants polluting industries to set targets to cut emissions and reach net zero

BlackRock, the world’s biggest investor, has said that oil companies and other polluting industries should disclose their carbon emissions and set targets to cut them, in the latest sign of the rapid reassessment of climate risks by asset managers.

All companies in which BlackRock invests will be expected to disclose direct emissions from operations and from energy they buy, known respectively as scope 1 and scope 2 emissions, the investment firm said in a letter outlining its plans.

Continue reading...

KPMG’s Bill Michael resigns after telling staff to ‘stop moaning’

Firm’s UK chair apologises for comments in virtual meeting about Covid crisis

KPMG’s UK chair, Bill Michael, has resigned after telling staff to “stop moaning” during a virtual meeting about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, where he also called unconscious bias “crap”.

Related: KPMG UK chair tells staff to 'stop moaning' about Covid work conditions

Continue reading...

‘Unconscious bias is utter crap’: KPMG staff share shock at UK chair’s Zoom comments

Accounting firm investigates as more details emerge of meeting where Bill Michael told staff to stop moaning

New details have emerged of controversial comments by the UK chair of KPMG, who has stepped aside while the accounting firm investigates what he said to staff during a virtual meeting.

A video of the Zoom meeting was published on Thursday in which Bill Michael describes the concept of unconscious bias as being “complete and utter crap for years”.

Continue reading...

GameStop shares plunge as traders dump stock

Reddit-inspired surge in stocks such as struggling video games store and AMC dive as hedge funds close positions

Shares in GameStop plunged by 65% in early trading on Wall Street as the trading mania sparked by small investors, that sent its stock surging and cost hedge funds billions of dollars, lost momentum.

The struggling Texas-based video game store chain has been the focal point of a battle by small traders, using forums such as Reddit, to punish Wall Street hedge funds that have bet on certain stocks falling in value. GameStop shares hit a high of $482 last Thursday but slumped to $80 shortly after the market opened. They recovered to $117 by mid-session, but closed down 60% at $90.

Continue reading...

How GameStop traders fired the first shots in millennials’ war on Wall Street

The dramatic struggle over video game chain’s shares suggests markets must now contend with a breed of angry, young, networked investors

When Ben, 28, a software engineer from Leeds, bought two shares in US games retailer GameStop for £460, it was for one reason, he says: “When they make the film about this in years to come, I’ll know I was there at the frontline with a bunch of idiots on the internet, trying to bring down Wall Street.”

For Emma Rivers from East Sussex, who invested £1,400 in the same company – having known little about it a few weeks ago – it has all been about sending a message that capitalism has had its day.

Continue reading...

GameStop shares surge again as Robinhood restores trading

App helping to fuel share-buying frenzy allows ‘limited buys’ after a $1bn cash injection to safeguard trades

Shares in companies including videogame retailer GameStop soared again on Friday, as an army of small investors taking aim at Wall Street regained access to amateur share trading platform Robinhood.

The app, weaponised by activist small investors to trap hedge funds in a “short squeeze” that has cost them $20bn on paper by some estimates, had suspended buying of stocks such as GameStop, cinema chain AMC and BlackBerry on Thursday.

Continue reading...

GameStop: how Reddit amateurs took aim at Wall Street’s short-sellers

Analysis: Understanding short-selling enabled amateur traders to beat hedge funds at their own game

The co-ordinated effort by users of the online forum Reddit to drive up the share price of GameStop and other companies is designed to turn the screw on short-sellers.

To the layman, the dynamics at play here can seem dizzyingly labyrinthine.

Continue reading...

Brexit has driven 2,500 finance jobs and €170bn to France, says bank governor

Bank of France chief claims ‘50 British entities’ have moved over the Channel, while Dublin, Amsterdam and Frankfurt have also benefited

The Bank of France’s governor has said that Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union has driven almost 2,500 jobs and “at least €170bn in assets” to France.

London remains the continent’s foremost financial centre but Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt and Paris have all scrambled to attract businesses that wanted to remain active in the 19-nation eurozone.

Continue reading...

The Wodge: can London’s tallest new skyscraper survive the Covid era?

Nicknamed The Wodge because of its girth, the capital’s tallest ever office has just muscled onto the skyline. But in the age of coronavirus, who wants to jostle for 60 lifts with 12,000 others?

With the City of London deserted once more, its streets only populated by the occasional Deliveroo driver or tumbleweed-seeking photographer, it seems a strange time to be completing the largest office building the capital has ever seen, not least because the very future of the workplace is now in question.

But, rising far above the Cheesegrater and the Walkie-Talkie, dwarfing the now fun-sized Gherkin and boasting the floor area of almost all three combined, 22 Bishopsgate stands as the mother of all office towers. It is the City’s menacing final boss, a glacial hulk that fills its plot to the very edges and rises directly up until it hits the flight path of passing jets. The building muscles into every panorama of London, its broad girth dominating the centre of the skyline and congealing the Square Mile’s distinctive individual silhouettes into one great, grey lump.

Continue reading...

Is ‘hysterical’ market speculation pushing us towards another crash?

Despite Covid, global stocks started 2021 on a high. But some analysts warn of an ‘epic’ bubble, amid fears that the flow of stimulus has created a monster

Insurrections are not usually seen by investors as buy signals. Yet even as rioters stormed the seat of US legislative government last week, stock market indices hit new highs in New York, adding another chapter to 12 months of apparent defiance of economic gravity.

Wall Street, measured by the benchmark S&P 500, was not alone in starting 2021 with a bang. London’s FTSE 100 jumped by more than 6% in the first week of the year as investors took in a heady cocktail of a President Joe Biden ready and able to spend money, cheap borrowing costs, and the hopes that vaccines will end the coronavirus lockdowns. Yet amid the exuberance a serious concern looms: are we on the cusp of another colossal crash?

Continue reading...

Ebullient analysts predict markets will weather the storm in 2021

Some forecasters, buoyed by the success of big tech and vaccines, are predicting 10‑15% gains

The new year is traditionally a time for looking forwards, for hopeful resolutions, for celebrating. But for economists and investors, the annual forecasts for 2021 might be something of a painful reminder of exactly how much they failed to foresee.

The pandemic quickly made a mockery of all projections. An entertaining analysis of US chief executives’ statements during 2020 by data company Sentieo for the New York Times showed a 70,000% year-on-year rise in the use of “unprecedented”, while “humbled” tripled – perhaps code for “it wasn’t my fault, so you should still pay me the same”. To be fair, though, in March it really did feel like nobody had a clue what to do – even governments, who are meant to have “pandemic” firmly on their risk radars.

Continue reading...

Sunak suggests EU access for financial services will exceed Brexit deal

Chancellor aims to firm up agreements that would allow institutions to trade as if still in EU

Rishi Sunak has offered financial services firms the prospect of closer access to EU markets than outlined in the Brexit trade deal, after Boris Johnson conceded that this aspect of the agreement fell short of UK hopes.

With MPs and experts still poring over the 1,246-page details of the agreement ahead of votes in the Commons and Lords on Wednesday, increasing focus has fallen on the relative lack of provision for the service sector, which makes up about 80% of the UK economy.

Continue reading...

Going for a song: why music legends are lining up to sell their rights

Stars follow Bob Dylan’s lead as streaming boom and Covid-19 upheaval fuels gold rush in song rights

Bob Dylan just made more than $300m (£227m) doing it, Dolly Parton says she might do the same, while the singer-songwriter David Crosby says he is being forced to do it. Musicians are queuing up for big paydays by selling the publishing rights to their songs, as the streaming boom and industry upheaval wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic redefines the economics of music.

Dylan’s surprise move this week to sell the publishing rights to his 600 songs, from Blowin’ in the Wind to Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, was described by the buyer, Universal Music, as one of the most important deals of all time. 

Continue reading...

Failure to seal post-Brexit deal would more than halve UK growth, says KPMG

Accountancy firm warns of stalled economic recovery without EU trade agreement

Failure to strike a post-Brexit trade deal would cut the UK’s economic growth rate by more than half next year, delaying a full recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report.

The accountancy firm KPMG said the economy would suffer heavily should the UK fail to secure a trade deal with the EU before the end of the Brexit transition period at the end of December, just as the country attempts to escape the deepest recession since records began.

Continue reading...

Nearly 75% of City firms reviewing office space provision

Rise in home working during the pandemic means many companies are assessing their needs

Nearly three-quarters of City firms are reviewing how much office space they really need following a boom in home working during the pandemic, new research shows.

The latest CBI/PwC financial services survey found 74% of companies – particularly banks and insurance firms – have been taking stock of their office requirements in the hope of either using the space differently, or reducing it.

Continue reading...

Tale of two Cities: FTSE 100 rises despite economic collapse

Surge in shares contrasts with Covid-related downturn and growing unemployment

The economic collapse in Britain during the second quarter of 2020 was the most brutal on record. Unemployment is forecast by the Bank of England to soar to 2.5m by Christmas. The Brexit cliff edge approaches. Yet in the City, the FTSE 100 has been on the up.

Never has the disconnect between financial trading and economic fundamentals appeared so extreme. What explains surging asset prices (the FTSE jumped 2% on the same day it was revealed the economy had slumped by 20%) when the outlook for many workers is so grim?

Continue reading...

Stock markets boom as hopes rise for US economic stimulus and Covid-19 vaccine

S&P edges towards all-time record with oil prices and hospitality stocks rising as investor optimism rebounds

US stock markets moved closer to record highs on Tuesday after investors bet on a fresh round of government spending to lift the economy and counter the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The S&P 500, seen as the broadest measure of US investor sentiment, raced to a 10-point gain by mid afternoon to leave it just 16 points short of the all-time high reached in February.

Continue reading...

Investors drop Brazil meat giant JBS

Top investment house delists world biggest meat producer over lack of commitment to sustainability issues

The investment arm of northern Europe’s largest financial services group has dropped JBS, the world’s biggest meat processer, from its portfolio. The Brazilian company is now excluded from assets sold by Nordea Asset Management, which controls a €230bn (£210bn) fund, according to Eric Pedersen, its head of responsible investments.

The decision was taken about a month ago, over the meat giant’s links to farms involved in Amazon deforestation, its response to the Covid-19 outbreak, past corruption scandals, and frustrations over engagement with the company on such issues. “The exclusion of JBS is quite dramatic for us because it is from all of our funds, not just the ones labelled ESG,” Pedersen said.

Continue reading...