MoneyWeek

Egypt has lowered the price of its passport. Wealthy foreigners can buy citizenship by paying $500,000 directly into a bank, reduced from $750,000 – or alternatively by buying $300,000 of state-owned property or investing $350,000 in projects, alongs

Harbour Energy, the largest oil producer in the North Sea, has warned that it will have to reduce staff and investment because its profits “were all but wiped out by Rishi Sunak’s windfall tax”, says Rachel Millard in The Telegraph. While Harbour Ene

WANdisco, a British software company, has asked for its shares to be suspended from Aim, says Joanna Partridge in The Guardian. The firm said its bosses had uncovered “significant, sophisticated and potentially fraudulent irregularities with regard t

Shares in Credit Suisse fell by 5% on Tuesday, after it said that it had “found material weaknesses” in its financial reporting controls and that clients were still withdrawing cash, say Julia Kollewe and Graeme Wearden in the Guardian. The news came

Investors’ Chronicle Online travel agent On The Beach (OTB) has navigated a tricky pandemic period. It had to raise £26m in July 2021 to refund customers for cancelled flights after initially saying it wouldn’t, and it is still paying back a loan to

“As Russian losses in Ukraine mount, Vladimir Putin continues to be a disruptive force in Europe’s periphery,” says Bethany Elliott in UnHerd. On Sunday, Moldovan police said they had foiled a Russianbacked plot to create “mass disorder” during demon

Pfizer goes shopping: Pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer has agreed to pay $43bn for Seagen and the biotech firm’s pioneering class of cancer drugs. That is a “lofty valuation”, says David Wainer in The Wall Street Journal. Rival Amgen baulked at paying so

The two great oil-producing rivals in the Middle East, Iran and Saudi Arabia, have agreed a Chinesebrokered deal to restore ties and reopen embassies seven years after relations were severed, says Patrick Wintour in The Guardian. The conflict between

Almost immediately after Joe Biden entered the Oval Office in January 2021, people began debating whether he would seek a second term in office in 2024 given the fact that, at 77, he was the oldest person to win a presidential election. Indeed, at on

There were two surprising things about the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB, see page 16). For an institution that very few people had ever heard of, it was huge, ranking as the 16th largest bank in the US, and even as a significant player in Lond

“Generals are always prepared to fight the last war,” goes the old saying. Investors often make the same error when they face a new crisis. The frantic way that markets have reacted to the ructions in the US banking sector over the past week shows th

● When the insurers Commercial Union and General Accident merged in 1998, the deal quickly became known as “Commercial Accident”, says Simon English in the Evening Standard. Adding on Norwich Union to form Commercial GNU in 2000 made the business an

An investor in a bond (or loan) faces two main risks. The first is that the market value of the bond drops; the second is that the borrower goes bust. A credit default swap (CDS) is in theory intended to deal with the second problem. However, in prac

Mike Edleson and Andy Puzder The Wall Street Journal Proponents of “woke capitalism” claim that firms can do well financially by doing “good” politically, say Mike Edleson and Andy Puzder. Our analysis, based on data from 2ndVote Analytics, which sc

Mark Mobius, founder, Mobius Capital Partners “I would be very, very careful investing in China” because of the government’s tightening grip and the risk of capital controls to stop investors taking money out again, reckons Mark Mobius, the veteran e

“It was on a Monday, the day after I’d had my third Tony nomination in a row and my accountant called up and said, ‘You have, literally, zero money’. So I put an alert out on Facebook asking if anyone needed a babysitter.” American actress Martha Pli

vittles.substack.com When Leonard Beaumont joined Sainsbury’s as a design consultant in the 1950s, “what came first was the problem of the egg”, says Ruby Tandoh. Until then, if you wanted to buy an egg, a Sainsbury’s worker would pick one from a wi

branko2f7.substack.com The rise of the robots is seen as a novel threat that could upend our whole way of life, says Branko Milanovic. In reality, this is nothing new. The introduction of machinery to replace repetitive or even creative labour has b

■ Last week’s merger of real-estate investment trusts (Reits) Shaftesbury and Capco leaves management “with a full in-tray and a lot to prove to investors”, says Shares. Both Reits specialised in prime property in London’s West End and the tie-up has

The nature of the investable cloud computing universe is such that we prefer to take a broad approach. There are smaller operators providing support services but they are narrowly-focused and thus more risky. We believe healthy returns are possible f

The ways the cloud can be used in our day-to-day lives is unlimited, as these examples help to illustrate. Within entertainment, whether it’s Disney+ or Netflix, the television shows and films we watch are stored in the cloud so that millions can sim

With the tax year about to end, you may be thinking about topping up your stocks and shares Isas. You should also be thinking about minimising fees, which can seriously erode your long-term returns. Every platform has its own set of charges, which ma

You have an extra three months to boost your state-pension income now that the government has extended the deadline to fill in missing years of national insurance contributions, says Lily Russell-Jones in The Sunday Times. To receive the full state p

● Good news for small businesses hoping to raise money from venture-capital funds in the coming months. The latest crop of venture capital trusts (VCTs) has so far raised around £780m, with many of the best-selling funds close to selling out in the r

Shareholder activism in Japan is on the rise. Japan registered the second-highest number of activist events in 2022, surpassed only by the US. Prominent examples of shareholders’ successful engagement with management include Toshiba, which is on the

The interest rate on UK government debt fell dramatically to only 3% by the early 1820s thanks to the end of the political uncertainty and military spending brought about by the Napoleonic wars. This was good for the British treasury, but bad for inv

Don’t overlook your pension options as you focus on using your individual savings account (Isa) allowance in the run-up to the end of the tax year. Private pensions offer an array of tax breaks arguably more valuable than those available from Isas –

Last autumn the government abolished the Health and Social Care Levy, which imposed a small additional tax on dividends. However, chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s (pictured) decision to cut both the tax-free allowance on capital gains and the dividend allowa

If you are looking for a cash junior Isa, the best rate you will find is 4% from both the Skipton and Coventry Building Societies. The latter’s account can be opened and managed in person or by post or telephone; the Skipton BS does not offer the pho

Parents have been using junior individual savings accounts (Isas) to save for their children’s future for over a decade. But most of them are making a mistake that could cost them thousands of pounds. Since their introduction, in 2011, junior Isas ha

2020 Pellegrino, Isesi Zibibbo, Pantelleria, Italy (approximately £19.99, signorellis.co.uk, albionwineshippers.co.uk, tannico.co.uk) I attended the Fells Annual Portfolio Tasting the other day, and it was a cracker. This elite wine importer is resp

Family-friendly hotels in London are rare, says Alexandra Zagalsky in The Week. Happily, the new Treehouse Hotel in Marylebone fits the bill. Rooms “convey a sense of playfulness and exploration, decorated like secret hideaways and perched, as the na

A Personal History of Europe Timothy Garton Ash Bodley Head, £22 The journalist and historian Timothy Garton Ash has over the past 40 years “both watched from the stands and played on the pitch in the arena of European change”, says Boyd Tonkin in t