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NatWest has ended UK high street banks’ quarterly reporting season on a note of cheer. The former Royal Bank of Scotland posted a year-on-year 40 per cent increase in pre-tax profits to £1.2bn, easily trumping analysts’ forecasts. That is good news for investors — including the government, which holds just under half the bank’s shares
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The writer is editor-in-chief of MoneyWeek Edinburgh has a new Library of Mistakes — a financial library devoted to helping us all learn from the disasters of the past. Over the past week it has been running a series of events designed to discuss those disasters. Wednesday was devoted to the mistakes of fund managers.
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The writer is vice-chairman of S&P Global and the author of ‘The Prize’ and ‘The New Map: Energy, Climate and the Clash of Nations’ Among Vladimir Putin’s many miscalculations was his expectation, before the invasion of Ukraine, that Europe’s dependence on Russian energy was so great that its response would be muted, limited to little
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“Greed is good,” said Gordon Gekko, the unforgettable villain of Oliver Stone’s classic 1987 film Wall Street. The character, Stone later said, was inspired in large part by one of that decade’s most controversial financial figures: Carl Icahn, once described as “the ultimate corporate predator”. But if Icahn’s explosive Trans World Airlines takeover in the
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Vase by Van Briggle, £220 A 1920s ceramic piece with a satin matte glazed finish. vinterior.co Pietra dura tabletop, £4,000 This 20th-century tabletop is inlaid with precious stones in a floral pattern. lassco.co.uk 18th-century Delftware dish, £249 This plate can be used as a serving platter or as a piece of wall art. selency.co.uk Pair
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ExxonMobil said it would triple its share buyback programme to $30bn and Chevron reported its most profitable quarter since 2012 as surging crude and natural gas prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine delivered a windfall for American Big Oil. Texas-based Exxon’s stepped-up share repurchase programme came as it posted first-quarter profits of $5.5bn on Friday,
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Engineering has not been one of literature’s great muses, but for Adrian Duncan — a Berlin-based Irish writer, visual artist and former structural engineer — it is central to his spare, affecting novels. Duncan’s 2019 debut, Love Notes from a German Building Site, revolves around Paul, a thirty-something-year-old engineer on an Alexanderplatz construction site, while
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It’s Jamie Powell’s last day on FT Alphaville. From writing in 2018 about how Tesla was overvalued at $340 to writing in 2022 about how Tesla was overvalued at $920 post a five-for-one stock split, Jamie has been a constant source of insight and/or entertainment. To mark his departure, here’s a selection of hits from
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Sales at AstraZeneca soared 60 per cent in the first quarter, boosted by demand for its Covid-19 vaccine and the rare diseases medicines it acquired as part of its acquisition of Alexion. The UK drugmaker announced sales of $11.4bn, above the analyst consensus of $10.9bn, bolstered by $1.1bn coming from its Covid vaccine and $1.7bn
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