Perhaps ten years ago I first considered the Far Eastern plantations covering palm oil – MP Evans (LON:MPE) in Malaysia and REA (LON:RE.) in Indonesia. The latter was run by a Richard Robinow who struck me as extremely civilised when lunching at Drayton Gardens around that time. His family are what used to be known…
The most interesting article over the weekend was offered by Richard Buxton in the SunTel business section. He pointed out the lunacy of determining deficiencies in pension funds by assuming that the annuities that they face buying must have their cost determined by the current yield on gilts, a figure determined by the barmy QE…
Ignacio Salazar called by at Drayton Gardens on Monday afternoon and, as promised, I bearded him on Orosur (LON:OMI) getting round to paying a dividend. I am not alone amongst shareholders in seeking tangible evidence that OMI is run for the shareholders. He made two points. The first is that he wants to be very…
J-C Juncker thinks the EU should be “intransigent” towards Britain. Be it noted that the EU does not however feel minded to be intransigent towards itself. It jolly well ought. I illustrate this with a piece from Guido: “The EU’s auditors have failed to sign off Brussels accounts for the 22nd year in a row, claiming that…
My wife and I know Alan and Gina Miller (pictured). Gina is better known in some circles as Mrs Wham Glam and has instructed Lord Pannick QC to appear for her in the RCJ Strand to force HMG to put an irrevocable Brexit decision to the House of Commons first. Mrs Wham Glam is a…
I may be missing something but I cannot for the life of me begin to see why Unilever (LON:ULVR) must sell to Tesco (LON:TSCO) at a price determined by Tesco. (It is true that my household is dedicated to Tesco and that we have circa six large pots of Marmite and can ride out the…
Yesterday was my 70th Birthday. My wife and I were joined by our very longstanding chum Anthony Rentoul, who is (now that he is more than seventy-five years old) capable of being indiscreet if not on an industrial scale then certainly on an engaging basis. We need more Anthonys. ***** The chairman got me to…
I have been slightly delayed this morning through having spent an hour at the gym woking out on the punch bags. After all, if one seeks the foothills of acceptability to be elected to power in UKIP one needs to be prepared. ***** For the benefit of those who do not read the Guardian online…
Philip Hammond is giving the market a boost today. Clearly, someone in HM Treasury reckons the gilts market will stand it. ***** A call from a box at Ascot on Saturday informed me that Capita (CPI)‘s problems shareprice wise are by no means over. I was told to ignore the director share purchases last Friday…
I went short Canadian dollars yesterday and, this morning, shorted Japanese yen at 100.78 (i.e. bought it versus USD) on the basis of a Goldman Sachs note. It is astonishing that JPY have held up so long. I bought back my FTSE short since quite a lot of hysteria seemed to have built up by…
