Companies

Martin Lewis has explained that many people could be owed money by the Student Loans Company if they wrongly received early repayments. The finance wizard, who founded MoneySavingExpert.com, tells his viewers in a video he shared on TikTok : "Can you reclaim your student loan? "Surprisingly you may be able to. Not if you chose to overpay, but if you paid more than you need to by accident. "And the biggest way that happens is if you started paying too early." He continues: "You see the Student loan rules state you should only start repaying in the April after you left university which, for most people, is around nine months after graduation. "But of course, lots of you will have started working before that point and student loans are repaid through PAYE, repaid through the payroll, and many employers because you've given them the wrong information or they've got the wrong information start deducting too early. "They deduct before the April after …

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As Leo Tolstoy didn’t write, all bull markets are alike; each financial crisis is unhappy in its own way. With news that a debt-ridden Chinese property company is on the brink of collapse , market analysts are reaching for the analogies. Evergrande is due to make interest payments in the next few days and by all accounts will struggle to do so. Will this be China’s Lehman Brothers moment ? Or will the company be saved as the stricken hedge fund Long Term Capital Management was in 1998? Might the plight of Dubai World in 2009 be a better comparison? In truth, this situation is unique. For one thing, the developer is enormous. It made $110bn in revenue last year and has assets of $355bn (£260bn) across 1,300 developments in dozens of cities. It has 200,000 employees and hires 3.8m people to work on project development each year. More pertinently, it has liabilities that amount to a scarcely believable $306bn (£225bn), which equates to a full 2pc of Chinese gross domestic …

[Read more...] about Evergrande is not China’s Lehman moment – but it’s still scary

British pension funds are ramping up their investment in Chinese companies despite growing tensions between the West and the Communist state. According to a new report by Hong Kong Watch , a pro-democracy advocacy group, the amount of cash invested by Western pension funds and other institutional investors in China has hit a record high in recent months. It comes amid rising criticism in the West about China's human rights record, including its brutal treatment of Uighur Muslims and its suppression of democracy campaigners in Hong Kong. The report highlights considerable investment by UK pension funds into Chinese firms which have "troubling human rights records", according to the think tank. Johnny Patterson, policy director at Hong Kong Watch, said: "There is a clear knowledge gap between financial professionals who know that enormous amounts of the money ... is being invested in China, and the members of the public and policy makers who would have serious ethical …

[Read more...] about British pension funds plough more cash into China

Beijing is scrambling to protect millions of Chinese homeowners from the collapse of Evergrande after the teetering Chinese property behemoth missed a bond payment deadline. Regulators acting for the Communist regime have stepped in to ensure that Evergrande focuses on completing developments across its 2.3bn sq ft of land reserves, rather than diverting funds paid by property buyers elsewhere. The company is yet to make an announcement regarding the interest payment on the offshore bonds, which was due on Thursday. If the money is not repaid within 30 days of its deadline, Evergrande will be considered in default. Local governments have been told to place funds for Evergrande projects into escrow accounts outside the developer's direct control amid concerns the company could set off a damaging chain reaction if it suffers an uncontrolled collapse. The business is China's second-largest property developer and has helped to drive a years-long building boom fuelled by millions of …

[Read more...] about Evergrande misses bond deadline as Beijing tries to protect property buyers

The John Lewis Partnership publishes its annual results on Thursday that will reveal the impact of lockdown on the department store business as well as its Waitrose supermarkets. The employee-owned retailer could announce details of plans to put a mini John Lewis store into most Waitrose stores by the end of next year. Here are five key questions Dame Sharon White, the chairman of John Lewis, will need to answer in the results. 1. Will it keep business rates relief? The owner of John Lewis and Waitrose has been criticised for not having handed back an estimated £170m in business rates relief it received from the Government. Top executives met this week to discuss if they should repay the windfall including the additional relief that it will receive following a three-month extension of the rates holiday this month. The department store chain has been shut during successive lockdowns as a "non-essential" retailer, but the tills have been ringing at Waitrose, which …

[Read more...] about Saving John Lewis: the five questions Sharon White must answer

Bill Hornbuckle likes his cards. The MGM Resorts boss, born in Japan, brought up in Connecticut is relaxed about one of his biggest rivals muscling in on his turf, according to those that know him. He could be forgiven for letting the events of the last few days test his nerve, however. DraftKings, America’s second-biggest sports gambling company, sprung a surprise last week by lodging a £16bn takeover bid for Entain , the British bookmaker with whom MGM has joined forces as momentum gathers behind the US sports betting market. Some have speculated that MGM may be forced out of the joint venture by DraftKings. But sources close to the Las Vegas stalwart disagree. “MGM is never a seller,” says one deal insider. The Las Vegas firm was a buyer earlier this year, lodging its own £8bn bid for Entain in January. The British company rejected the approach. Months on, the US gambling gold rush is still in full swing. In 2018, the Supreme Court repealed a ban on sports betting outside …

[Read more...] about Americans carve up Ladbrokes owner

People who have heard of LuLaRoe have usually come across it for one of two reasons. Either someone they know has tried to sell them the company’s stretchy leggings and fit-and-flare dresses over Facebook, or they’ve seen some of the gleeful coverage of LuLaRoe’s very public disintegration as a brand: the lawsuits , the bankruptcies filed by its sellers, the boxes of apparently moldy clothing shipped to vendors that smelled, in one woman’s description, like a “dead fart.” (Leggings! Never not controversial! ) Much of LuLaRich , a new four-part Amazon series exploring the company’s rise and fall, focuses on its alleged mismanagement and manipulative aspects, grouping it with some of the splashier docuseries of years past. No one at LuLaRoe seems to have found themselves getting the area above their gro in branded , or poisoning an Oregon salad bar with salmonella. But in one scene, a former LuLaRoe vendor recalls a company meetup where everyone assembled was, like her, …

[Read more...] about How a Leggings Empire Reveals a Hole in the American Economy

For decades, multilevel-marketing companies had it easy. Cutco knives, Tupperware containers, and Pampered Chef bread mixes were inoffensive products sold at weeknight wine parties and, later, in themed Facebook groups. For the most part, they were an unremarkable part of women’s lives . Multilevel marketing—a form of direct selling in which a major chunk of a person’s income comes not from the sales they make themselves but from the sales made by people they recruit into the company—was often regarded as exploitative by consumer advocates , but it rarely encountered a serious threat. During the pandemic, distributors for many MLM companies have used this lack of pushback to their advantage: On Instagram and Facebook, women have tried to persuade their followers to use their stimulus checks to join a company that sells shampoo or weight-loss products . They have used economic collapse as a recruitment tool , offering MLMs as the solution to lost income and increased …

[Read more...] about How the Pandemic Stoked a Backlash to Multilevel Marketing

NEWS BRIEF The CEO of a blood-testing startup once lauded in Silicon Valley has been banned from owning and operating a laboratory for two years. Elizabeth Holmes, who in 2003 founded Theranos, a company that in 2014 had been valued at $9 billion, has been under scrutiny since last year. Then, regulators with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, questioned whether the company had adequately tested blood. In the investigation, regulators found deficiencies with the company’s technology and laboratory practices. As such, Theranos threw out two years worth of test results and lost its partnership with drugstore chain Walgreens. Holmes, in a statement late Thursday, said the company would work to fix the issues that led to the ban by regulators. She said: We accept full responsibility for the issues at our laboratory in Newark, California, and have already worked to undertake comprehensive remedial …

[Read more...] about Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes Banned for Two Years

Facebook has begun blocking adverts for gun accessories such as holsters and gun safes on its site until at least Jan 22, after it was criticised for showing ads next to coverage of riots at the US Capitol . The company announced the change to its rules in a blog post after complaints from activists. “We are banning ads that promote weapon accessories and protective equipment in the US at least through January 22, out of an abundance of caution,” two Facebook executives wrote in a blog post. “We already prohibit ads for weapons, ammunition and weapon enhancements like silencers. But we will now also prohibit ads for accessories such as gun safes, vests and gun holsters in the US,” they added. Tech Transparency Project, an activist group in the US, found that Facebook accounts were being shown ads for tactical equipment that could be used in protests while the accounts searched for information on the US Capitol riots. Facebook is also now blocking the creation of any Facebook …

[Read more...] about Facebook bans ads for gun accessories ahead of Biden inauguration