Boohoo Buys Debenhams Brand and Website - An Explainer

Boohoo is acquiring the Debenhams website for £55m (paid in cash 🤑)

On the face of it, it seems a bit odd...

Target customer:
- Debenhams: aged 45 - 55
- Boohoo: aged 16 - 24

Bit like when your parents start using tiktok, right?

Here's why they're doing it (thread 👇) pic.twitter.com/xScxt7Gx3w

— Robert Collings (@RobertCollings_) January 25, 2021

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HSBC To Axe 82 Branches

HSBC plans to axe 82 branches in the UK during 2021, as a result of a fall in footfall across its retail network and a surge in digital banking.

HSBC will be left with 511 branches in the UK after the closures, with many of those to be remodelled and some to provide fewer services.

Reuters reports that a spokesman for HSBC said the bank would aim to redeploy affected staff to nearby branches where possible, adding that customers would see the removal of counter services in some of the retained branches.

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Pension Transfer Advice Scandal in The Offing

BREAKING: 130 financial advice firms stopped providing DB pension transfer advice in 2020, following action by the Financial Conduct Authority, the regulator said in an update this morning. pic.twitter.com/36ukqniORl

— Josephine Cumbo (@JosephineCumbo) January 18, 2021

 

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Insurers Must Pay Business Interruption Insurance for Covid

Significant news for small businesses with insurance that has not been paid out https://t.co/mPGAKswUoz

— Paul Scully MP (@scullyp) January 15, 2021

 

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Budget Representations Portal Closes Thursday 17:00

Our Budget 2021 representations portal is closing this Thursday at 5pm.

Click here to have your say: https://t.co/3WONPAeNi5 pic.twitter.com/4h5CHy20W1

— HM Treasury (@hmtreasury) January 12, 2021

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Twitter and Facebook Learn That for Every Action There is an Equal and Opposite Reaction

Twitter loses $5 billion in market value.
Facebook sees $34 billion erased from market cap. pic.twitter.com/36A37CjnsL

— Helen (@Hells4Heroes) January 11, 2021

 

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Fears of Inflation are Unfounded

Inflation: coming to an economy near you in 2021? - https://t.co/hG0aUK5ANM pic.twitter.com/w0JPaUwIBV

— LondonLovesBusiness (@LondonLovesBiz) January 7, 2021

Poppycock! 

High levels of unemployment, coupled with almost negative interest rates and the UK being turned into one giant building site will mop up any inflationary pressures.

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Bailey Faces Questions Over Role in London Capital and Finance Scandal

Bank Governor faces questions on his role in FCA’s London Capital and Finance fiasco pic.twitter.com/1HHtOidSm1

— Paul Lewis (@paullewismoney) January 6, 2021

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£4.6BN New Lockdown Grants

 

£4.6 billion in new lockdown grants to support businesses and protect jobs

• Chancellor announces one-off top up grants for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses worth up to £9,000 per property to help businesses through to the Spring
• £594 million discretionary fund also made available to support other impacted businesses
• comes in addition to £1.1 billion further discretionary grant funding for Local Authorities, Local Restriction Support Grants worth up to £3,000 a month and extension of furlough scheme

This follows the Prime Minister’s announcement last night that these business will be closed until at least February half-term in order to help control the virus, and, together with the wide range of existing support, provides them with certainty through the Spring period.

The cash is provided on a per-property basis to support businesses through the latest restrictions, and is expected to benefit over 600,000 business properties, worth £4 billion in total across all nations of the UK.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said:

The new strain of the virus presents us all with a huge challenge - and whilst the vaccine is being rolled out, we have needed to tighten restrictions further.

Throughout the pandemic we’ve taken swift action to protect lives and livelihoods and today we’re announcing a further cash injection to support businesses and jobs until the Spring.

This will help businesses to get through the months ahead – and crucially it will help sustain jobs, so workers can be ready to return when they are able to reopen.

A further £594 million is also being made available for Local Authorities and the Devolved Administrations to support other businesses not eligible for the grants, that might be affected by the restrictions. Businesses should apply to their Local Authorities.

The new one-off grants come in addition to billions of existing business support, including grants worth up to £3,000 for closed businesses, and up to £2,100 per month for impacted businesses once they reopen.

The government has also provided 100% business rates relief for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, £1.1 billion existing discretionary funding for Local Authorities, the furlough scheme now extended to April and 100% government backed loans, extended until March.

Further information

• the one-off top-ups will be granted to closed businesses as follows:
• £4,000 for businesses with a rateable value of £15,000 or under
• £6,000 for businesses with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000
• £9,000 for businesses with a rateable value of over £51,000
• business support is a devolved policy and therefore the responsibility of the devolved administrations, which will receive additional funding as a result of these announcements in the usual manner:
• the Scottish Government will receive £375 million
• the Welsh Government will receive £227 million
• the Northern Ireland Executive will receive £127 million
• this will contribute to the funding which has already been guaranteed by the UK Government, to continue to provide the devolved administrations the certainty they need to plan for their COVID-19 response in the months ahead
• small businesses in the devolved administrations should also be able to benefit from other UK-wide measures in the government’s unprecedented package of support for business, including the various business lending schemes (where the repayment terms were made easier as part of the Winter Economy Plan), and the extension of the Self Employment Income Support Scheme

 

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OECD States The Bleedin' Obvious!

OECD no longer remotely favours austerity...

its chief economist tells me
- fresh austerity would provoke a popular backlash
- fiscal policy should do the stabilisation work
- governments should ditch fixed targets on debt

m/f
https://t.co/408GwX7XQk

— Chris Giles (@ChrisGiles_) January 4, 2021

It is remarkable that it took the OECD so long to realise this, all in all I am beginning to wonder if the OECD is shite!

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Diamonds Continue To Be Forever - For One More Year at Least!

 

De Beers, a company I once worked for, in a move akin to Brexit negotiations is extending its decade-long sales agreement with Botswana for another year to give the sides more time to hammer out a new deal.

Bloomberg reports that the accord was due to end this year, but the two parties said logistical challenges from the coronavirus pandemic mean they need more time to negotiate its replacement.

The agreement between the world’s top diamond producer and Botswana has in the past been a source of contention. It took years to negotiate the last deal, which led to De Beers moving all its diamond selling and sorting staff to Botswana from London.

De Beers operates in Botswana under a joint venture with the government called Debswana, and then has exclusive rights to sell them. Much like the EU and UK, both Botswana and De Beers need each other. Botswana accounts for more than two-thirds of De Beers’ output, while Botswana relies on diamonds for 90% of its exports.

 

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London Braces for Tier 3

It seems likely that London will be put into Tier 3, possibly as early as this afternoon.

That being the case, projections placed before the PM a few weeks ago predict that Tier 3 in London will lead to approximately 500K job losses in London.

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Wealth tax Commission Targets Pension Pots

Good luck to anyone holding a pension pot, it looks like the Wealth Tax Commission want to tax it ebfore you have even drawn down on it!

This will really fuck up the economy!

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• Premiums are inclusive of 12% IPT. 
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ONS Screw Up Again

I have written on numerous occasions on this site about the unreliability of the ONS figures, eg in 2013 I wrote:

"Here we are in May 2013, and yet again the ONS have been forced to revise their figures. It seems that Q1 construction figures reported by the ONS were wrong, and need to be revised upwards. As such the UK was not in recession in Q1 2013."

Sadly the government have been using ONS figures to determine Covid policy, which in turn impacts the economy.

Guess what?

 As Robert Peston writes on this thread, the ONS data was wrong!

When shaping policy to protect us from Covid-19, the government relies on data from @ONS to provide the scientific basis for its actions. The weekly @ONS coronavirus survey is supposed to be the information gold standard - and in particular it underpinned...

— Robert Peston (@Peston) December 8, 2020

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• Attend any meeting with HMRC
• Appeal to the First-tier Tribunal or Upper Tribunal
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• Premiums are Annual Premiums.
• Premiums are inclusive of 12% IPT. 
• Premiums and IPT are due in full in advance / at commencement of scheme.
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Supermarkets Give Back £2BN Business Rates Relief

And another supermarket domino falls- Lidl says that it will hand back £100m of biz rates relief. Follows Aldi, Asda, Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, B&M. Takes the amount handed back by essential retail to almost £2 billion

— Ashley Armstrong (@AArmstrong_says) December 4, 2020

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• Attend any meeting with HMRC
• Appeal to the First-tier Tribunal or Upper Tribunal
• Having the security of knowing that fees will be met in full will enable your Accountant (your tax return agent) to defend your position robustly
• Premiums are Annual Premiums.
• Premiums are inclusive of 12% IPT. 
• Premiums and IPT are due in full in advance / at commencement of scheme.
• There is a NIL excess on all policies.

Please click here for details.