Media Coverage

Political interest in private equity has ramped up over the last year.

After a string of high-profile political interventions on recent PE deals, from defence to retail, the Labour Party has made it their mission to scrap the carried interest tax rules that PE fund managers benefit from. Returns would no longer be booked as capital gains (taxed at 28 per cent) but as income (at 45 per cent).

The price of CO2 used to produce food and drink will be five times higher, under a deal to restart production. But there will be no "significant impact" on prices in supermarkets, the government says...

Food and Drink Federation boss warns that crippling staff shortages mean customers must get used to more limited options. Fellow panelist Elly Darkin, a trade policy adviser at advisory firm Global Counsel, warned the looming introduction of post-Brexit border checks would cause further disruption.

Stephen Adams, a former advisor to the European Commission’s trade division and a director at the consultancy Global Counsel, said the new rules “will place some serious demands [on importers]”.

There is a truce in the British-EU sausage war. The extension of the grace period for chilled meats going from Britain to Northern Ireland has bought time to find solutions. It is unlikely to be used successfully. And it concerns a part of the world which lacks the luxury of using war as a metaphor for trade disputes.

The Financial Conduct Authority’s chief executive officer has said the regulator is still learning about how to deal with digital entrants to financial services but its work would be made easier by tighter legislation.

Speaking at Global Counsel’s event yesterday (July 14), Nikhil Rathi was asked if the FCA had the framework and firepower to properly regulate digital entrants to the market.

Evaluating the costs associated with the UK’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 deserves far greater attention. It suddenly entered the fray last week when Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, was asked who would be expected to pay the touted £1 trillion cost — including £10,000 per home to replace gas boilers — in an interview with Andrew Neil.

The speed with which the European Commission has had to frame its "Fit for 55" climate package will likely lead to lengthy, difficult negotiations with the European Parliament and EU Council, according to Brussels-based energy expert Giorgio Corbetta of strategic consultancy Global Counsel.

Central to Boris Johnson’s political sense of self is the notion that he is a “Brexity Hezza”: “Brexity” because he led the charge for the UK’s exit from the European Union; and “Hezza” because, like Michael Heseltine, his political passion is regenerating parts of the country that have suffered years of post-industrial decline — the policy known as “levelling-up”, even if precise definitions of it are hard to come by.

After a poor set of local election results and a botched reshuffle, Labour hasn’t had the best of weeks. But one thing it may have gotten right is the appointment of Angela Rayner as “shadow secretary for the future of work”. While it is easy to mock the elaborate titles bestowed on the deputy leader after she was sacked from as party chair and national campaign coordinator, her brief is nothing to scoff at. The Conservative party would do well to appoint their own equivalent to sit on the front benches. 

Until recently, concerns about the impact of technology on the workplace have largely focused on the so-called “gig economy”. This nebulous term refers to a whole range of jobs typically characterised by insecure and generally low-paid employment mediated by digital platforms – think ride-hailing, food delivery and courier services.