Interesting Help To Buy Scheme Stats

Interesting. More than a third of households using Help to Buy have incomes of £50,000 or more.
10 per cent of households using the scheme have an income of over £80,000, while 4 per cent have an income of over £100,000 a year. pic.twitter.com/iMZvvdbACC

— Tom Knowles (@tkbeynon) August 16, 2018

Thameslink Has a Sense of Humour

Hi Ken. Thank you for bringing this to our ^Neil

— Thameslink (@TLRailUK) August 16, 2018

The Train Ruling Class

Just another reminder that most people - nearly 90% - don't use trains to get to work. As you were.

— Simon Cooke (@SimonMagus) August 15, 2018

Simon Cooke nails it, the minority who use trains seem to have the loudest voice when it comes to allocating subsidies etc.

Commuters To Be Screwed Next Year

Some mild relief for commuters. RPI rises by 3.2% in the year to July. That number will be the ceiling for rail fare increases this year. Bit lower than the 3.4% that was anticipated. And lower than the 3.6% from last year. But higher than the 2.5% level of CPI

— Ed Conway (@EdConwaySky) August 15, 2018

Unemployment at Lowest Level For 40 Years!

UK unemployment fell by 65,000 to 1.36 million in three months to June - lowest for more than 40 years, figures show https://t.co/zfUxeY4uEa

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) August 14, 2018

Lidl Fucks Up €500M SAP Roll Out

"German supermarket chain Lidl, which runs over 10k supermarkets in 29 countries, has rolled back a new inventory management system in SAP after 7 years and 500millions€ spent. The project was launched as the biggest #digitaltransformation project in the history of the company" pic.twitter.com/E3Vt4MbNkd

— Giovanni Gentili (@giovannigentili) August 14, 2018

Maybe they should have bought it from ALDI!

Bank of England Takes a High Risk Punt on The Euro

Follow the money. The Government's real faith is in the euro - just when it's claiming that the EU is useless etc pic.twitter.com/5lkd6IxsHS

— Christina Patterson (@queenchristina_) August 12, 2018

This is very high risk, given the unquantified exposure of Europe to Turkey!

Turkey's Stuffed!

Reuters: #China's Ctrip says has shut option to pay using Turkish Lira because of currency slump#Turkey

— Vincent Lee (@Rover829) August 13, 2018

House of Fraser Bought By Sports Direct

Following on from today's announcement about House of Fraser going into administration, it has been announced that Sports Direct has bought is for £90M.

"Sports Direct International plc ("the Company" or "the Group") announces the acquisition of the business and assets of House of Fraser from the administrators of House of Fraser Limited, House of Fraser (Stores) Limited and James Beattie Limited, the House of Fraser group's main operating companies (the "Operating Companies"), for a cash consideration of £90 million (the "Transaction").

Pursuant to the Transaction, the Group has acquired all of the UK stores of House of Fraser, the House of Fraser brand and all of the stock in the business.

For the year ended 28 January 2017 (the last date to which statutory accounts are available for the parent company of the Operating Companies and prior to the appointment of the administrators), the House of Fraser group had gross assets of £946.3m and made £14.7m net profit. "

Plans for the stores are not yet clear.  

A Turkey Is For Life, Not Just Christmas!

Turkey Meltdown: Lira Implodes As Panicked Sellers Spark Global Contagion https://t.co/x1jJX0EUAo

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 10, 2018

House of Fraser Goes Into Administration

House of Fraser is calling in EY as administrators, after talks with investors and creditors had "not concluded in a solvent solution".

In a statement to the Luxembourg Stock Exchange the department store said administrators had confirmed that the business would continue trading, including all stores and offices, while they attempted to complete a sale.

House of Fraser employs 17,500 people, including 11,500 concession staff.

Court hearings are expected to take place at 7:30am today, "at which orders will be sought appointing individuals from Earnest & Young as administrators of each of the operating companies with immediate effect," the filing said.

The firm stated: "Significant progress has been made towards completing a sale of the group's business and assets.

The proposed administrators are expected to continue to progress those discussions with a view to concluding a transaction shortly after their appointment."

HoF chief executive Alex Williamson is quoted by CITY A.M.:

“We are hopeful that the current negotiations will shortly be concluded."

Chairman Frank Slevin added:

“This has been an extraordinarily challenging six months in which the business has delivered so many critical elements of the turnaround plan. Despite the very recent termination of the transaction between Cenbest and C.Banner, I am confident House of Fraser is close to securing its future."

Fingers crossed for the staff!

Trade Wars Hotting Up!

JUST IN: Kremlin calls new U.S. sanctions 'categorically unacceptable' and illegal under international law https://t.co/eleXsxCjZu pic.twitter.com/4GlFjCwa6S

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) August 9, 2018

Sanctions to right of them,

Sanctions to left of them,

Sanctions in front of them

Volley'd and thunder'd

Pension Buy Ins/Outs Hit Record Levels

A record £7.8bn of pension buy-ins and buy-outs was reported by UK pension plans in the first 6 months of 2018, according to new analysis by LCP, an actuarial consultancy.

— Josephine Cumbo (@JosephineCumbo) August 9, 2018

Turkey Enters Delusional Phase

TURKISH FINANCE MINISTRY SAYS NEW ECONOMY MODEL WILL BE ANNOUNCED BY MINISTER ALBAYRAK ON FRIDAY

— Quantitative Trading (@fiquant) August 9, 2018

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig!

BMW Technical Problems

Here’s BMW’s official statement of my question.

“BMW AG investigations have revealed that - similar to the current Korean situation - an Exhaust-Gas-Recirculation (EGR) module malfunction may, in rare cases, cause fires in some BMW diesel vehicles in the European market” pic.twitter.com/58l7RYhhMH

— Jaehwan Cho 조재환 (@hohocho) August 8, 2018