Category: Business

Money In The Bank

Less than ten years ago it was a good bet to put your money in the bank. Not on deposit, stupid, but in owning the bank by being a shareholder. OK, there were a few that bit the dust – think Slater Walker, Barings and BCCI, none of which were proper banks, but the real… Continue reading Money In The Bank

All Change

Something strange and unexpected has happened to me. It’s as unsettling as the moment in An American Werewolf in London when the main character transforms into a werewolf. It’s actually so awful that you may not want to read further.

Tie the Knot

Men don’t wear ties and shops don’t sell them. Having left home without one and needing neckwear to visit my club, I popped into Uniqlo and American Apparel on Kensington High Street  –  no cigar. There was no branch of T M Lewin handy so, reluctantly, I went into TK Maxx.

Free Lunch.

About six days work a year, free lunches and £25,000. That’s what a non exec. director usually gets. But what does the shareholder, ultimately employing him/her get?

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Coal To Newcastle

The UK’s second biggest export market in August this year was Switzerland at £2.3 billion (the biggest was the US, £3.2 billion), according to the Barometer column in The Spectator this week. So what on earth are we selling so much of to the Swiss?

Drinks By The Pool (Or Structured Products Made Simple)

I visited a large house in East Anglia a few years ago and the owner outlined his plans for landscaping and extending his already extensive grounds. More a project for a French King and more a blog topic for The Irish Aesthete you might think.

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Fill Up Your Tank

The President of OPEC and the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell are in agreement; oil prices will go up. They would say that, wouldn’t they? (Thank you Mandy for your contribution to what is supposed to be a serious post.)

Bad News From Wolfsburg

You may remember Gifford, my hedge fund manager friend, who flits between the East and West coasts while managing a long/short equity fund domiciled in the Cayman Islands. He wrote to me and the other investors in his fund this week and I’d like to share what he had to say.

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