Some of the world’s largest asset managers are clamouring for a slice of the action after China announced plans this month to push more of the country’s vast pool of household savings into financial markets. Under the new schemes, employees will be able to contribute up to Rmb12,000 a year ($1,860) to private pension plans,

Voluntary insolvencies in England and Wales reached their highest level for 60 years in the first quarter to a backdrop of surging business closures, according to official statistics. In the first three months of 2022 there were about 4,900 company insolvencies, more than double the number in the same period last year, according to data

It was barely two weeks after Carillion’s 2018 collapse that the head of the accountancy watchdog — a body accused of being “useless” and “toothless” — called for an overhaul of the audit market. There was plenty of blame to go around. The construction company’s demise had left tens of thousands of staff facing redundancy,

It is arguably the strangest thing to emerge from an English car park since they found Richard III under a Leicester pay-and-display. This time, on an equally nondescript patch of asphalt opposite a Burger King in Coventry, the focus is the future — and a purported revolution in green transport. Air-One, which opened in the

The US dollar surged to its highest level in two decades on Thursday as investors ramped up bets that aggressive interest rate rises from the Federal Reserve will leave other big central banks trailing far in its wake. The dollar index, a gauge of the US currency’s strength against a basket of other developed world

Rishi Sunak, UK chancellor, has launched a consultation on radically changing the rules governing insurance companies, with the aim of allowing them to invest tens of billions of pounds more in infrastructure — including green energy. The government argues that reform of the EU’s Solvency II rules — and their replacement with a British regulatory

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Tug of war matches are rarely lengthier or more exhausting than those between the insurance industry and its customers. The conflict in Ukraine is creating many such tussles, where the outcome remains extremely uncertain. A little clarity emerged in an update from UK speciality insurer Lancashire on Thursday. It estimated its ultimate net losses in

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“Sent from heaven to finish all your educations” was how Walter Sickert defined himself in 1907 to young British artists. Aged 47, he had just completed his own education: a decade living between Dieppe and Venice, exhibiting in Paris, honing influences from his mentors, Whistler and Degas, before detonating European modernism in a domestic context

Welcome back to Energy Source! Russian president Vladimir Putin opened a new front in the energy war with the west, cutting off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria after the countries refused Moscow’s demand to shift payment into roubles. The move sent gas futures on the continent soaring by as much as 20 per cent,

Over the past year, I’ve been captivated by photos taken of Bella Hadid on the streets of Paris and New York. I couldn’t pinpoint why until it recently clicked: Hadid looks like someone who is having fun with clothes, and I haven’t thought of fashion as fun for at least two decades. The American model’s style

The founder and chair of one of Asia’s biggest private equity investors has criticised the Chinese government for policies that he says have resulted in a “deep economic crisis” comparable to the global financial crash. Weijian Shan, whose group PAG manages more than $50bn, said his fund had diversified away from China and was being

A decade ago, while attending a conference in an unprecedentedly prosperous and westernised Moscow, I went to interview the British KGB double agent George Blake in his dacha outside town. It was meant to be just a newspaper article, but it spiralled out of control, and my biography of him appeared last year. Other recent

Number 30 Charlotte Street is holy ground for London’s restaurant cognoscenti. It was, from some point in the mid-Neolithic until well into this millennium, the site of L’Etoile, a traditional French restaurant commanded by the charismatic Elena Salvoni. It had run its course by the time it closed, but it is still wonderful to see

Fear of male violence distorts women’s lives. It affects daily decisions: is it safe to take that shortcut? Should I avoid that empty train carriage? Assessing risk is second nature for most of us, yet the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a police officer in London last year turned out to be an

Russia has exported €63bn worth of fossil fuels via ship and pipelines since the invasion of Ukraine, according to new data, with most going to the EU. The largest importers of Russian coal, oil and gas were Germany, Italy and China, according to an analysis of pipeline and seaborne trade by the Centre for Research

Sophisticated trading desks and compliance departments on Wall Street are facing renewed scrutiny following the arrest of Bill Hwang on federal racketeering, fraud and market manipulation charges. Hwang, 58, and former chief financial officer Patrick Halligan, 45, were yesterday accused of using Archegos Capital Management as an “instrument of market manipulation and fraud” with “far-reaching

A Nasdaq-listed ride-sharing company has agreed a $100mn deal to buy UK start-up Zeelo, the latest in a string of acquisitions as technology companies push into the transport industry. Dubai-based Swvl, which listed in New York this month through a merger with a blank cheque company, has rattled through five acquisitions in the past eight

EY Germany is planning to cut workloads as it overhauls its auditing practices following the failure to spot that half of Wirecard’s revenues and billions of corporate cash did not exist. The German arm of the Big Four accounting firm on Thursday promised staff “an improvement of working conditions” after receiving the recommendations of an

Barclays’ profits fell 18 per cent in the first quarter and the bank had to delay a promised £1bn stock buyback as a jump in litigation and conduct provisions overshadowed a surge in trading revenue. Net income fell to £1.4bn, down from £1.7bn in the same period last year, the British bank said on Thursday.