Your Business

A rogue trader at UBS has lost £1.3 billion in unauthorised deals.

Savers with the UBS, the Swiss banking giant, are being reassured they will not suffer losses because of today’s shock announcement that a rogue trader has lost about US $2bn (£1.3bn) in unauthorised trading. But this reminder of how even the world’s biggest banks can lose almost unimaginable sums of money may worry savers with smaller institutions much closer to home.

Fortunately, savers with banks authorised to trade in Britain are protected by extensive regulation and a statutory scheme compensation scheme. Here are 10… Read More

Protestors raise a banner saying 'thieves' in Athens (Photo: EPA)

Are the Germans (or Finns, or Austrians, or Dutch) prepared to engage in decades-long transfers to the Greeks in a transferunion, as the logic of the euro demands?  No.  Are the Eurozone authorities able to disguise, any longer, that the "sovereign bailouts" have really been additional banking sector bailouts?  No.  And yet, have the authorities taken the opportunity of the past four years since the banking crisis began, or the three years since it really hotted up, to introduce proper bank resolution procedures including debt-equity swaps, that would allow for bank… Read More

Contrary to the impression given by the Chancellor, many owners of second homes and buy to let landlords who pay basic rate income tax will be caught by the new higher rate of 28 per cent capital gains tax (CGT). Frank Nash of accountants Blick Rothenberg told me:
Treasury documents make it clear that an individual’s gains will be added to their income when assessing whether they remain basic rate taxpayers for the purposes of the new higher rate of CGT. So, anyone whose income and gains exceed £43,875 will be liable to pay 28 per cent rather than 18 per cent CGT on gains made after midnight tonight. That’s a big difference and… Read More

I can understand why George Osborne has sought out the wise council of former Conservative chancellors like Lords Howe, Lawson and Lamont. But Deng Xiaoping?

Yes, Osborne is set to announce in his Budget a new chapter in Britain’s economic development of which the former Chinese leader would have been proud. The long-held Conservative pledge for a one-year national insurance contributions holiday for all start-up businesses has suddenly turned into an incentive that will be restricted to new businesses based outside of London, the south east and east of England.

As I reported in The Sunday Telegraph, the move – to be formally announced on Tuesday – is a sign that the new Government sees merit in creating large scale “special… Read More

Breathe easy. George Osborne will protect entrepreneurs from the proposed increases in capital gains tax. I know that because Mark Prisk, the Business minister, has just told me so.

In his first interview since becoming a minister, I asked Prisk to give some guidance on what entrepreneurs and business owners can expect on CGT in the Chancellor’s emergency Budget on June 22. Prisk said that Osborne shared his own commitment to entrepreneurs. “What George Osborne has made very clear is that we are going to have a generous package for entrepreneurs. It is as close to his heart as it is to mine,” he said, adding, “I am very confident as someone who worked in this role in Opposition and worked very closely… Read More

It's a nasty piece of legislation, the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive. Approved by European MEPs on Monday night, it's designed to protect the economy from hedge funds – by requiring them to agree to transparency standards in exchange for a "passport" to market to investors in Europe.

But hedge funds are not the only form of investment vehicle that will be caught out by these new rules. Private equity is also affected. As are venture capitalists and the angel investors they often work with.

And is these last two groups that are far more important to the British economy than hedge funds. Yet there has been very little discussion in the media about the impact of the directive on them. The directive… Read More

I've just been told that Lord (Mervyn) Davies, Labour business minister and former Standard Chartered chairman, has rejected a Conservative approach to join a new government in favour of returning to the private sector.

But he has indicated that he would happily act in some public capacity to see through the decisions made under Labour's "industrial activism" plans. And with formal coalition talks taking place between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, he may still yet have a formal ministerial role. However, he will not work directly for a Tory government, I'm told.

Mervyn Davies became a Labour Party member and took the Labour whip in the Lords when he was appointed in January last year.

As one of Gordon Brown’s last private… Read More

This little noticed chart from the Bank of England lays bear the fiction that subdued demand is hampering bank lending to small businesses.

It shows that, in the first three months of the year, demand for credit from sub-£1m turnover businesses rocketed while availability from the banks actually fell. Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds tell us that they failed to meet their net lending targets because businesses did not want to borrow. They then tell the Bank of England something completely different.

The chart also shows that those small businesses lucky enough to secure a loan in the first three months of the year had to pay even more for the privilege, which… Read More

If you are reading this at your desk, nibbling a sandwich instead of taking a lunch break and wondering whatever happened to your work/life balance, then you might draw some comfort from the fact that you are not alone.

Nearly a quarter of full-time employees are working longer hours than ever – and less than half of them get paid extra for their efforts – according to Santander, the biggest bank in the eurozone and third largest in the world.

Out of 2,000 people questioned, 23 per cent said they were working longer than they ever had done before and only 41 per cent are paid any extra for doing so. About one in eight or 13 per cent said they… Read More

Promises, promises. It’s almost six months since Gordon Brown first promised British business that the Government would come up with a new investment fund to back growing firms. Today Alistair Darling will say that some progress has at last been made. I’ve been told that he has managed to sign up at least four major banks – including the two he owns on behalf of us – to create the fund, which will be known as either the Growth Capital Fund or the Small Business Growth Fund (depending on which Government source you talk to).

With the Government acting as an anchor investor, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds are stumping up around £100m each and Santander and Clydesdale have agreed… Read More