Evil discusses Phosphorus Holdco PIK Toggle bonds and the Cheltenham races… As some readers may recall I purchased Phosphorus Holdco PIK Toggle bonds at 3.8p or 3.8% of face value. And, being proactive, I set out to enquire as to who are my fellow claimants in respect of the theory that BC Partners unreasonably scooped…
It has been a week to forget as far as The Bank of England is concerned, with even the Governor of the 300-year-old institution, Mark Carney, admitting that its reputation has taken a knock. However, to my mind he is wrong in this confession. The Bank’s reputation has not been riding high for many a…
The Markets UK house prices fell by 0.3% in February according to the latest figures from the Halifax. This was the first fall since October last year and takes the average house price to 192,372 pounds. Nevertheless, prices in the three months to February were 8.3% higher than a year ago. The figures came alongside…
Something which I have historically found somewhat irksome is the way that most private investors are biased to the buy side, yet many of those who advise them appear to be perennial bears. They also seem to delight in being harbingers of doom and gloom, even while selling stocks, bonds and probably everything else which…
By Robert Sutherland Smith ABF, otherwise known as Associated British Foods (ABF), is that old fashioned thing, an unapologetic conglomerate dominated by one big family equity stake of 50% – the quoted company which contains the business interests of the Weston business family. Bread, biscuits and sugar have all been part of the Weston family…
Evil discusses Mar City… Since the rewards of pigging and porking (see comments passim) are so high it is easily understood why stock promoters engage in the practice. The most recent instance of which I am aware is going on at Mar City (MAR) where the controlling shareholders, Tony and Maggie Ryan – they hold…
If you are something of a cynic such as myself then you may agree with the idea that the magic of the stock market is actually encapsulated in the reshuffle process. This is currently going on with the FTSE 100 and other leading UK indices, whereby a steering committee rejects companies whose market capitalisations have…
I have just spent some time this morning chatting to a lawyer and it is quite clear that the Trinity Mirror (TNI) hacking cases are gathering pace. There may be as many as one thousand cases. Bearing in mind that each case will cost Trinity Mirror well upwards of £100,000, this does not look good.…
Economic analysis by Filipe R. Costa While US investors are happily swapping their artificially-inflated holdings of US equities for their high-flying European counterparts; the European peripheral governments applaud the ECB’s 1.1 trillion euro asset purchase plans as they see their booming debts being sold at ever lower prices; and while the equity market rally is…
Even though the FTSE 100 managed to deliver a 15 year high a few days ago, it is still the case that the blue chips continue to frustrate and disappoint in almost equal measure. That said, further down the food chain of the equity market, the FTSE 250 has actually been quite a star performer,…
