Ministers need to continue reforming London’s capital markets or risk losing ground to rival cities in the EU and US, the author of the UK’s latest market deregulation proposals has warned. Last week, the Treasury backed a series of reforms drawn up by Freshfields’ lawyer Mark Austin to make it quicker, easier and cheaper for […]
The UK’s corporate governance code will be overhauled for the first time in four years with new rules to make boards more responsible for fraud and their company’s finances, and strengthen accountability for bad behaviour. The Financial Reporting Council, which oversees the audit industry, on Tuesday laid out plans to carry out recommendations made by […]
Ministers are poised to back the next wave of post-Brexit reforms to the City of London that will make it easier for listed companies to raise money in the UK and encourage retail investors to back them. A series of recommendations has been drawn up by Freshfields’ lawyer Mark Austin, who has reviewed fundraising rules […]
The UK’s largest recruiters and staffing companies have attacked government plans to replace picketing workers with agency staff, arguing that the use of temporary workforces to break industrial action would prove inflammatory. In a letter to Kwasi Kwarteng seen by the Financial Times, the bosses of companies such as Adecco, Hays, Randstad and Manpower urged […]
Investors have warned ministers not to water down rules on how non-executives are paid because of concerns that any changes could compromise their watchdog role. The government is pushing to change the rules to allow non-executives to take a bigger proportion of their income in shares as a way to link their financial rewards with […]
The UK taxpayer took on the risk of lending to many businesses that may not have needed financial support to survive the Covid crisis, according to an official evaluation of government-backed pandemic loans schemes. Between 38 and 45 per cent of businesses surveyed in the report commissioned by the British Business Bank, which administered some […]
The UK is still fighting to secure the listing of Cambridge-based tech group Arm Holdings, Britain’s tech minister insisted after the launch of a digital strategy to attract and build fast-growth businesses in the UK. Chris Philp said that the government was still “working closely with” the management of Arm on the IPO process, despite executives […]
The City has picked Michael Mainelli, an economist and former accountant, to become lord mayor of London in 2023 following a secret ballot held by a group of grandees of the Square Mile. The City of London Corporation’s Court of Aldermen has voted to elect Mainelli to the post, according to people familiar with the […]
British currency maker De La Rue has warned that profits would be hit by the rising cost of supplies, sending its shares sharply lower on Wednesday. The company, which makes British banknotes, said “further headwinds” would curtail adjusted operating profit for 2023. It added that there was now a “substantial degree of uncertainty in the […]
The new chair of the Federation of Small Businesses is in talks with Downing Street over how to tackle the problem of late payments from large companies to small UK suppliers that is holding back growth. In an interview with the FT, Martin McTague also warned that small businesses were disproportionately affected by inflation given […]