It was the sickly sweet scent lingering outside the school toilets that first alerted headteacher Dan Cleary to an emerging trend when pupils returned after the summer holiday last year. Since then, rarely does a fortnight go by when he does not have to discipline a student for stashing a “vape”, or electronic cigarette, in
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The writer is chief market strategist for Europe, Middle East and Africa at JPMorgan Asset Management A slew of economic data has recently surprised to the upside. According to the purchasing managers’ index for the eurozone, the bloc’s economy is growing again. The US had a bumper jobs and retail spending report for January. Investors
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s potential acquisition of Gunvor, the energy trading house, has reached an impasse due to disagreements over the deal’s size, people familiar with the negotiations said. While Adnoc had hoped to acquire all of Gunvor, or a majority stake, the commodity trader’s chief executive Torbjörn Törnqvist is unwilling to yield control
When the UK suggested making board directors responsible for signing off internal controls over financial reporting, the reaction was furious. This was business unfriendly, City grandees thundered, it would deter good people from joining boards and bog down directors in bureaucracy. The proposal was modelled on the US Sarbanes-Oxley rules, which function perfectly well in
Labour is to review the UK business tax regime as part of efforts to make Britain the fastest-growing economy in the G7, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce on Tuesday. Reeves, giving a speech in London to the annual conference of Make UK, the trade body for Britain’s manufacturers, will say the review is intended
The UK’s most senior civil servant is considering an early departure from his role after leaked WhatsApp messages that have infuriated Conservative MPs. Simon Case, cabinet secretary, has told friends that he is “genuinely undecided” between trying to guide the civil service through a general election next year and resigning this year to give his
Chinese companies are flocking to Switzerland to raise capital after being discouraged from listing in the US by geopolitical tensions and in Britain by tougher audit standards. Nine Chinese companies floated in Zurich last year, raising $3.2bn in the European country, according to SIX, the operator of the Swiss stock market. That far outstrips the
Private equity firm General Atlantic is teaming up with an Abu Dhabi state fund and the emirate’s largest listed company to launch a new investment group, underlining the continuing pull the oil-rich Gulf state holds for Wall Street. The new investment firm will manage a series of assets drawn from ADQ, Abu Dhabi Growth Fund
The writer is author of ‘Chip War’ When the US last week added several units of BGI Group, a Chinese genetic sequencing firm, to its entity list restricting technology transfer, the primary justification was that the company had been “contributing to monitoring and surveillance”, including of ethnic minorities. Yet the human rights implications of China’s
The two brothers who own the Daily Telegraph newspaper have been summoned to give evidence in a long-running battle at the High Court in London between their uncle Sir Frederick Barclay and his former wife over an unpaid £100mn divorce settlement. Judge Jonathan Cohen ordered Aidan Barclay, chair of the Telegraph Media Group and his
Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen has convinced US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to meet in California rather than Taipei to avoid an aggressive Chinese military response, as tensions run high between Beijing and Washington. Several people familiar with the situation said Tsai and McCarthy had agreed to meet in the US because of Taiwanese security concerns.
History shows that heavy spending on armaments may reduce rather than increase stability. Still, the two goals align nicely for delegates at China’s annual National People’s Congress. Within Chinese business, this will create winners among defence companies and losers across many other sectors. Chinese premier Li Keqiang mentioned the word “stability” 33 times in his
Starbucks has shelved plans to sell its owner-operated UK coffee shops and instead committed to opening 100 outlets this year, after a proposal to move to a fully franchised business model angered existing franchise partners. Duncan Moir, Starbucks president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea), on Monday said that despite being “cautious about
CBI boss Tony Danker has stepped aside following an allegation over his workplace conduct at the UK’s largest business group. The CBI on Monday said it had been told in January of an allegation regarding its director-general, which was investigated and dealt with “in line with CBI procedure”. It said the investigation “determined that the
Xi Jinping has called Vladimir Putin his best friend. But now the Russian leader is in urgent need of help from China. Putin’s army is bogged down in Ukraine and running short of ammunition. Should Xi prove that he is a friend indeed by supplying Russia with weapons? China’s decision will say a lot about
European stocks rose in morning trade on Monday, extending a short rally, as investors awaited economic data and comments from central banks to provide more evidence on the future path for interest rates. The benchmark Stoxx 600 rose 0.1 per cent, with Germany’s Dax up 0.3 per cent. The FTSE 100 fell 0.4 per cent,
Estonia’s prime minister Kaja Kallas has won a resounding victory in parliamentary elections, a triumph for one of the EU and Nato’s most pro-Ukraine voices. Kallas’s liberal Reform party came in first place in Sunday’s vote, taking 37 seats of the 101 in Estonia’s parliament and putting her in pole position to carry on as
Of the hundreds of climbers who set out every year to scale Mount Everest, only about two-thirds reach the summit. EY’s global chair, Carmine Di Sibio, thinks he has better odds for his own ambitious adventure: a plan, known internally as Project Everest, which would split the Big Four accounting firm by spinning off its
Technocrats and politicians reflexively justify power grabs by citing external threats. That authoritarian tendency has found an improbable exponent in Jon Cunliffe. This respected deputy governor of the Bank of England recently launched a programme to develop a digital pound. The central bank anticipates overlapping with commercial banks in some key activities while gaining sweeping
America leads on innovation, and Europe on regulation, or so the conventional wisdom goes. But recently, the US seems to have taken the lead in the latter, particularly in politically powerful industries like technology, pharma and finance. Just last week, Eli Lilly, the producer of popular insulin medications Humalog and Humulin, pledged to reduce its
The UK tax authority has prosecuted only eight cases in the past two years for the enabling of tax evasion, despite pledging to pursue the lawyers, accountants and financial institutions that help clients carry out tax fraud. Instead, there has been a steep drop from the 43 prosecutions brought by HM Revenue & Customs in