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Gerry Grimstone, Britain’s minister for investment, has written for The Times about how the UK has shown “extraordinary resilience and continued attractiveness to international investors” as the economic recovery proceeds. Foreign direct investment produced 32% more jobs last year than in 2019, Lord Grimstone notes, adding that the UK outpaced the EU by 5% in Q3 2020. He goes on to list some examples of recent investment success in his department’s new Inward Investment Report and looks forward to October’s Global Investment Summit when the UK will look to attract even more foreign investment into strategically vital industries. Lord Grimstone adds that his Office for Investment will set up new services to help global investors channel investments into all corners of the UK.

 

The Times

The UK government has announced that Barclays is the first sponsor for the Global Investment Summit, which takes place on October 19th. The summit will showcase British innovation and demonstrate commitment to green industries of the future ahead of the Cop26 meeting in Glasgow. Jes Staley, the chief executive of Barclays, said: “Barclays fully supports the Global Investment Summit and the Government’s ambitious drive to boost investments, jobs and growth in the UK’s green industries.”

 

The Times

JP Morgan’s London-listed  American Investment Trust has sold  its holdings in Marathon Petroleum and Raytheon Technologies due to their poor ESG credentials. The move comes as pressure mounts on financiers to stop bankrolling firms that could be harming the environment.

 

The Daily Telegraph

The FT's Robert Armstrong backs the views of former Blackrock CIO Tariq Fancy who says executives pushing ESG don’t believe their own claims that such investing can help solve the problems it purports to address.

 

Financial Times

Analysts expect Lloyd's is set to swing to a £2bn loss triggered by a surge in claims on business interruption policies. Research from Insurance DataLab shows the London market nursed losses that were £1.6bn higher than 2019's figure. Matt Scott, co-founder of Insurance DataLab, said: “The Lloyd’s market has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, with business interruption and other pecuniary loss claims more than quadrupling over the last 12 months. The sector has already pushed through price increases, particularly towards the end of 2020, but more will be needed to offset the losses already experienced by the market to date.”

 

City A.M.

A takeover of Morrisons by either of the current private equity bidders would “materially weaken” the supermarket chain’s retirement schemes, trustees of the pension funds have said. Trustees are concerned that an acquisition along the lines proposed would increase the company’s finance costs, reducing the scope for company contributions to the schemes. Steve Southern, the chairman of trustees, called for both Clayton, Dubilier and Rice and the rival consortium led by Fortress Investment Group to offer improved financial security to scheme members. The pension schemes are in surplus on an accounting basis. However, the trustees said that they were £800m short of the assets needed to secure members benefits with an insurance company, a figure known as the “buy out,” or Section 75 deficit.

 

Financial Times

The Daily Telegraph

The Times

The delayed results for Amigo Holdings indicate the sub-prime lender is struggling under a £234m loss with no agreement with the Financial Conduct Authority in sight regarding the firm's compensation scheme for customers who were mis-sold loans.

 

The Times

Daily Mail

Ryanair has pulled services out of Northern Ireland blaming the refusal of ministers to suspend or reduce air passenger duty and a lack of "COVID recovery incentives" from Belfast International Airport and Belfast City Airport. The airline stopped flying from the City of Derry airport earlier this year.

 

Sky News

The founder of OnlyFans, Tim Stokely, has said banks including BNY Mellon, Metro Bank and JPMorgan have forced the company to ban explicit content, putting the platform’s future in jeopardy.

 

Financial Times

Goldman Sachs will require proof of vaccination from all staff and clients entering the bank’s US offices, the bank said on Tuesday. The investment bank will also require everyone to wear masks at its offices regardless of vaccination status starting on Wednesday, and fully vaccinated employees will receive weekly COVID-19 tests starting on September 7th, according to a memo. The move follows the granting of full approval by the US Food and Drug Administration of the BioNTech/Pfizer jab, which experts predict will prompt more public and private organisations to introduce mandates. Richard Gnodde, the head of Goldman Sachs International, said it would not insist on bankers returning to its London head office being vaccinated, nor would it force people to return if they felt uncomfortable doing so.

 

BBC News

Financial Times

Daily Mail

Analysis by City law firm Bates Wells suggests that as many as 80,000 EU nationals could lose their right to live in the UK due to errors in EU Settlement Scheme applications. The Home Office received an unexpectedly high number of applications for EU Settled Status, which has led to considerable processing backlogs. The law firm added that applicants anxiously awaiting a decision or support have struggled to get in touch with the Home Office, with calls and emails going unanswered. A Home Office spokesperson said: “These claims are scaremongering and do not represent the huge success of the EU Settlement Scheme which has to date received more than 6m applications – with more than 5.1m grants of status.”

 

City A.M.

HM Courts & Tribunal Service is now the third public body to be issued with a penalty for IR35 failings after HMRC issued the department with a £12.5m tax bill. In late July, the DWP was issued with a £87.9m bill for incorrectly determining the IR35 status of contractors since 2017. Following this, the Home Office was also issued with a £33.5m penalty for "careless" IR35 failings. Seb Maley, the CEO of IR35 expert Qdos, said that given HMRC’s “fundamentally flawed IR35 tool, CEST, was used to decide the IR35 status of contract workers, I’m not in the least bit surprised that mistakes have been made.” He continued: “Here we have proof yet again that the taxman’s [sic] very own IR35 tool threatens compliance rather than ensuring it. Businesses should avoid it altogether or at the very least get a second opinion on every answer it provides.”

 

Daily Express

Santander US is buying the remaining 20% of its American consumer unit for $2.5bn. The move comes after a recent offer by the bank to buy a stake in its Mexican consumer unit. The FT's Lex says that unless buying-out minority shareholders of subsidiaries tightens the group and increases earnings, it may look as though Santander CEO Ana Botin is trying to reduce public scrutiny.

 

Financial Times

City A.M.

Fraudulent activity soared during the course of the pandemic with loan fraud up 40% in Q2, according to Experian, and criminals opening bank accounts at five times the rate of the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, a survey by consumer group Which? of more than 400 people who had been victims of a fraud - or attempted fraud - in the past 12 months found that nearly a fifth were dissatisfied with how their bank had managed it, and almost a third said their bank had failed to offer advice or resources on how to protect themselves in the future.

 

Financial Times

The Independent

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has started to issue new disclosure requirements to Chinese companies seeking to list in New York as part of a push to boost investor awareness of the risks involved. Some Chinese companies have now started to receive detailed instructions from the SEC about greater disclosure of their use of offshore vehicles known as variable interest entities (VIEs) for IPOs, implications for investors and the risk that Chinese authorities will interfere with company operations. The SEC has also asked Chinese companies for a disclosure that “investors may never directly hold equity interests in the Chinese operating company,” according to a letter. Many Chinese VIEs are incorporated in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands.

 

Bloomberg

CNBC

City A.M.