Profits warnings are common during recessions but the oddest seen so far comes from Goldshield Group. The new owner has looked at the books and said that for several years the pills company’s profits may have been understated. Yes, understated.
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Should a company remain independent when almost two-thirds of its shareholders want to sell it? The business secretary thinks so. Lord Mandelson has added his name to those who think the minority should outvote the majority on takeovers.
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Supermarkets are probably the most competitive business in the UK. Why then are they being lumbered with an ombudsman, a new supplier code and all the compliance bureaucracy that goes with them?
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A report detailing the gap between Britain’s rich and poor has been met with universal shock and promises to narrow the divide. But why? Isn’t inequality not only inevitable but desirable?
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What better monument to financial folly than the tower opened in Dubai at the start of 2010?
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It will not be fun to be rich in 2010. Labour plans a 50 per cent tax on earnings above £150,000; the Tories propose a £25,000 annual levy on non-domiciles and the Liberals pledge a 1 per cent tax on properties worth over £2m. Whoever you vote for, they’ll get you.
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Lord’s is not expected to open its gates for free during Test matches nor Wimbledon hand out cheap center-court tickets; why then to we demand they sell their television rights cheaply?
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That Reed Elsevier (LON:REL) has changed its chief executive is noteworthy, but not as much as the fact it has replaced a British manager with a Swede. Foreigners now account for 42 FTSE 100 boardroom seats: before long they will have a majority of the top UK corporate positions.
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For decades to come, Debenhams (LON:DEB) will be a business school case study. It is also the story of the 21st century boom and bust - bought by private equity, loaded with debt, floated expensively, shunned, an Icelandic target, forced to raise new capital – and now the private-equity funds have exited.
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The official figures showing the recession is not yet over were a surprise. But what if they are revised to show the economy was actually growing after all? It would change not only our outlook but our faith in all statistics.
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