Activist calls for break-up of estate agent Countrywide

Activist calls for break-up of estate agent Countrywide accusing bosses of mismanagement By Lucy White For The Daily Mail Published: 22:00 BST, 19 August 2020 | Updated: 22:00 BST, 19 August 2020 Estate agent Countrywide is under attack from one of its largest shareholders who has accused bosses of mismanaging the company and losing the … Read more

ALEX BRUMMER: High Street banks face digital stress

ALEX BRUMMER: High Street banks face digital stress as online rivals’ slick software wins over customers By Alex Brummer for the Daily Mail Published: 21:50 BST, 17 August 2020 | Updated: 21:50 BST, 17 August 2020 The reputation of Britain’s High Street banks never recovered fully from the 2008-09 financial crisis, and is not helped … Read more

RUTH SUNDERLAND: Soros and Buffett about to turn 90

RUTH SUNDERLAND: Health, wealth and freedom can vanish in an instant – George Soros and Warren Buffett (who both turn 90 this month) knew it all along and have grown wise and rich on the knowledge through their long lives Warren Buffett is the all-American investor, with deep and immovable Nebraskan roots  George Soros is the quintessential … Read more

HAMISH MCRAE: We want quality, not quantity post-Covid

So how was the holiday in France then? If going abroad means there is a risk that you have to quarantine when you get back, you will think twice about travelling.  For holidaymakers that is a huge inconvenience. For many companies the impact is more radical, for it means they have to rethink everything about … Read more

JEFF PRESTRIDGE: Crucial post office network stays intact

JEFF PRESTRIDGE: If cash is to survive on our High Streets, it is crucial that the post office network is kept intact By Jeff Prestridge for The Mail on Sunday Published: 22:01 BST, 15 August 2020 | Updated: 22:01 BST, 15 August 2020 The local post office is much changed from what it used to … Read more

ALEX BRUMMER: Britain fires up output but Covid has left nasty scars

Soon after lockdown, as economic output plunged in Britain and the rest of the world, an economist friend told me he refused to buy into parallels with the Great Depression and other historic disasters. His argument was that Britain and the other Western democracies had learned from the past and the unprecedented fiscal and monetary … Read more

ALEX BRUMMER: ‘Woke’ Unilever finds itself under fire on two fronts

Unilever’s green problem: One of Britain’s most ‘woke’ companies finds itself under fire on two fronts, says ALEX BRUMMER By Alex Brummer for the Daily Mail Published: 21:50 BST, 13 August 2020 | Updated: 21:50 BST, 13 August 2020 Anglo-Dutch Unilever is among Britain’s most ‘woke’ companies. It was no accident that in 2018, former … Read more

The UK’s recession is dire but what matters is how we climb out it

The UK economy is in recession. The ONS’s confirmation that we are technically in recession managed to be both important and perhaps the most meaningless piece of news of this year. Often with a recession there is a ‘will we or won’t we moment’ as GDP figures are closely watched to see if the economy … Read more