Any other business
Let’s hope for a better, demerged, RBS when it’s back in private hands
At last the government has restarted the process of selling its stake in Royal Bank of Scotland. A first £2…
WH Smith, Britain’s worst high-street retailer, is ripe for disruption
I’m not in the least surprised to learn that WH Smith has been voted Britain’s worst high-street retailer in a…
Why Mark Carney’s successor is likely to be woman
If Ben Broadbent’s Daily Telegraph interview last week was the launch of a bid for the governorship of the Bank…
We might be plunging towards Brexit chaos – but at least everyone has jobs
It’s heartening to see an authentic British entrepreneur heading this year’s Sunday Times Rich List, the industrial-ist Jim Ratcliffe, who…
It was a hot weekend for takeover deals – and cycling
The bank holiday turned out to be a hot one, not least in the takeover arena. First, Shire Pharmaceutical accepted…
TSB’s new owners should have seen this computer catastrophe coming
The systems breakdown at TSB is not (yet) the worst UK bank computer cock-up of all time: that prize is…
Bank AGMs are an opportunity to shout about branch closures
The season of high-street banks’ annual general meetings is with us and I urge you to turn up and make…
I’m an optimist for trade despite the idiocies of politicians
I’m proud to be a member of the 661-year-old Company of Merchant Adventurers of the City of York, having qualified…
The US Treasury shows London how to cold-shoulder Putin’s cronies
A decade ago I commissioned an article about Vladimir Putin’s business cronies. Among other lines of enquiry, it sought to…
Call this US-China tit-for-tat a trade war?
‘Stocks plunge as China hits US goods with tariffs,’ said a headline after the long weekend, and the FTSE100 duly…
So farewell Toys ‘R’ Us, the predator that became the prey
I remember the arrival of Toys ‘R’ Us in Britain, because as a young banker in 1984 I was tasked…
Sorry fishermen, but we were never going to win back control of our waters
My decision to vote Remain was driven in part by an exercise in which I tried to identify anyone close…
Advice from the Institute of Directors: prepare for the scandal tornado
As ‘business lobby groups’ go, the Institute of Directors has always struck me as worthy but unexciting: a more authentic…
Can Theresa May find time to be her own housing supremo?
Theresa May has belatedly taken the advice I offered her here last May and named a supremo to tackle the…
Running a bank’s tough. That’s no reason to start handing capital back
A mixed bag of annual results from the big banks. RBS, still 73 per cent owned by the taxpayer, recorded…
Investors were right to sell Carillion shares when they spotted trouble ahead
The fallout from Carillion’s bankruptcy spreads in slow motion — just as the outsourcing and construction giant’s finances gradually stretched…
Could the Serious Fraud Office put an end to Barclays as we know it?
The Serious Fraud Office has upped the stakes in the case of the controversial $3 billion Qatari financing that saved…
Falling US shares tell us only that investors were too excited in January
If you were the incoming or retiring chairman of the Federal Reserve, you might be quietly pleased to see stock…
The real reason hospitals threw back that Presidents Club cash
I visited St Thomas’ Hospital on Monday, to discuss fundraising for a cardiology research project. On the way in, I…
Forget a Channel bridge and celebrate Crossrail
This column has long been a sucker for a grand projet. ‘Time for a trip to Boris Island,’ I gushed…
Outsourcing is a good thing, regardless of the Carillion crash
Carillion is a disaster on all fronts, but my sympathies go first to the fallen contracting giant’s sub–contractors. Upwards of…
Michael Wolff said the US needed a market-charming president: now it has one
I once commissioned Michael Wolff —currently the world’s most talked-about journalist as the author of the White House exposé Fire…
In defence of that £110 million bonus for the boss of Persimmon builders
New Year’s Eve was certainly a day for celebration in the household of 53-year-old Jeff Fairburn, chief executive of the…
Instead of schmoozing at City parties, this year I’m Sarah the Cook in panto
Last Christmas I offered you a cruel satire about a boardroom big-shot whose career went so awry that he ended…
The skulking assassins of the London Stock Exchange
The revenge tragedy at the London Stock Exchange whose plot I outlined last month has reached its third act, but…
