Dubai-based property developer Damac plans to buy London office space for the first time in a bet the struggling market will bounce back. The luxury group, known for developing Donald Trump’s golf course in Dubai, aims to snap up the offices at bargain prices and turn them into plush places to work that meet ESG
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Chinese authorities are putting pressure on prominent local economists to avoid discussing negative trends such as deflation, as concerns mount about Beijing’s ability to boost a flagging recovery in the world’s second-biggest economy. Multiple local brokerage analysts and researchers at leading universities as well as state-run think-tanks said they had been instructed by regulators, their
China’s biggest mutual funds are nearing government limits on offshore investment, as they seek higher returns elsewhere against a backdrop of slower growth at home. China’s so-called Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor scheme, introduced in 2006, allows banks, brokerages and asset managers to bypass the country’s strict capital controls and buy securities abroad. Beijing has steadily
An influential South Korean lawmaker has strongly criticised Washington’s interventions in the global semiconductor industry, in a sign of the disquiet in Seoul over US efforts to corral Asian allies into its economic security agenda. Yang Hyang-ja, a former chip engineer and Samsung executive who chaired a ruling party committee on South Korea’s semiconductor competitiveness
NatWest has begun to sound out potential permanent successors to former chief executive Dame Alison Rose, but any appointment will only be made once the UK bank has installed a new chair, according to multiple people with knowledge of the process. The bank was already on the hunt for a successor to chair Sir Howard
Berkshire Hathaway’s cash and investments in short-term Treasuries surged to $147bn at the end of the second quarter, underscoring Warren Buffett’s faith in the backbone of global financial markets despite the rocky political climate in Washington. The sprawling conglomerate — which owns the BNSF railroad and Geico insurer — increased the holdings by nearly $17bn
Welcome back. Russia’s foreign ministry says an African version of the propaganda outlet Sputnik is now available as a smartphone app “for all those tired of the one-sided and biased western-centred coverage of all things Africa”. This shows how seriously the Kremlin takes the battle for public opinion in non-western parts of the world. With
A Ukrainian naval drone has struck a Russian oil tanker in the Kerch Strait near Crimea, in the latest in a series of bold strikes that signal Kyiv’s use of unmanned vehicles is becoming more aggressive and effective. The attack on the vessel took place early on Saturday morning according to Russian reports and a
A shaky video posted online shows a drone swooping between the skyscrapers of the Moscow City business complex before exploding into the side of a glass tower. As a ball of fire erupts, a woman filming the scene screams: “We’re leaving tomorrow! We’re not staying here!” The attack on Russia’s capital on July 30 was
Clop, a Russian-speaking hacking group specialising in ransomware, has its own website. Yes, this is a thing — criminals openly encouraging their victims to negotiate a ransom for the return of their data as though it were a legitimate commercial deal. Using language that is both business-like and chilling, it urges users to open a dialogue, stating
More than half a decade before its latest rebranding, I gave a speech in Berlin about environmental, social and governance investing. Unlike my infamous “Miami under water” presentation last year — which stated the bleeding obvious, I thought — this one was deliberately provocative. It forewarned that ESG (as a desired output of investing, not
Conservative Eurosceptics on Friday turned on Rishi Sunak after a week in which the UK government shelved key post-Brexit policies intended to “take back control” of Britain’s borders and regulations. Sunak invited Britons to view the benefits of Brexit through the bottom of a pint glass, visiting a beer festival to talk about how “freedom”
A campaign to force “absentee MP” Nadine Dorries to attend parliament or face a by-election this autumn is being spearheaded by the chair of the Commons standards committee. Labour MP Sir Chris Bryant told the Financial Times he wanted to see the restoration of a parliamentary rule from 1801 stating that “no member do presume
© Ed Alcock/Eyevine I live near the old home of — now a museum devoted to — John Keats. His poems are too soulful and nature-smitten for as arid a man as me. But one phrase he invented is ever useful. “Negative capability”. It appears in his letters, not his verse, and means a tolerance for
The UK bank that serves more than 14,000 charities has amassed significant paper losses on its bond holdings in the wake of rising interest rates. The unrealised losses echo recent problems at US regional banks including the now defunct Californian lender Silicon Valley Bank. The value of CAF Bank’s bond holdings were £33.4mn lower than
Global stocks have swept higher since the start of this year, defying almost universal expectations of a decline and stirring fears that complacency has been setting in among investors. This week suggested those fears are well-founded. Growth worries in Europe, monetary policy shifts in Asia, and nerves over rising bond yields and the government’s credit
The Chinese-owned battery maker AESC is set to play a key role in Tata’s UK battery factory, despite the best efforts of the Indian company and ministers not to disclose its involvement. Tata last month pledged to spend £4bn on a UK plant that will provide batteries for Jaguar Land Rover’s electric cars. At the
The writer is a financial journalist and author of ‘More: The 10,000-Year Rise of the World Economy’ It is all too easy for investors to get caught up in the short-term news and focus on the latest profit warning, or utterance from the chair of the US Federal Reserve. But those who take the long
UK lenders have cut the cost of mortgages, offering hope for the housing market in a week when the Bank of England hiked rates to their highest level in 15 years and house prices fell the most since 2009. The BoE raised rates to 5.25 per cent on Thursday, its 14th consecutive increase, and Huw
My ink-jet printer is sulking, because I’ve tried to sneak a cartridge from a different company into it. Since it had an internal software upgrade, it detects my attempts to use recycled cartridges, and shuts down. It’s morphed into a different product from the one I bought. Appliances used to be labour-saving devices. Now, we
A Russian court has jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny for a further 19 years on charges of “extremism”. He will serve the term in a “special regime” colony for men serving life sentences and “particularly dangerous recidivists”, Moscow City Court ruled. Such detention centres have the strictest conditions in the Russian penal system and are