Just as you can’t judge a book by its cover or guess a packaged gift from its shape, assessing the commercial risk of trading with a construction company by the figures in its balance sheet will not reveal the whole story. You also need to understand the company’s business model and the degree of ‘subjective’ valuation it creates. Here, we
On 25 May 2021, the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) wrote to all of the UK’s authorised loan-based peer-to-peer (“P2P”) crowding platforms, to express its concern about areas of potential harm for investors (i.e. lenders). Amongst the four areas listed was the adequacy of current wind-down plans (WDPs), their triggers, and liquidity monitoring. In its latest communication to the P2P sector
The housing market is a key part of the UK national psyche. The inexorable rise in house prices has enriched baby boomers, but now unaffordable prices exacerbated by sharply higher mortgage interest rates are destroying the life prospects and restricting the lifestyles of younger generations. The government talks of supply and demand, sets unrealistic housebuilding targets and tinkers with planning
More mixed signals on the economy mean uncertainty for UK businesses We finished 2023 with arguments raging on whether the UK was already in a shallow recession or might end up in one early this year. Now we have another batch of confusing signals. The respected EY Item Club have just upgraded their GDP growth forecast for 2024 to 0.9%
Near the top of the list of worries that keep many manufacturing bosses awake at night is hiring and retaining the right talent for an industry being overwhelmed by helter skelter technological change. Recruiting enough people was already a problem in a tight labour market, but the emphasis is increasingly moving away from the number to getting hold of staff
The manufacturing sector has more experience of significant non-human involvement in its research, operations and administration than almost any other after decades using data analysis, machine learning and robotics. Now AI is being used to harness the power of these well-established methods to reshape traditional manufacturing processes. This is ushering the industry into a new era of intelligent automation in
