The Brutal History of the Slave Tax in the UK
In February 2018 the Bank of England’s Twitter page chirpily announced: ‘Here’s today’s surprising #FridayFact. Millions of you helped end the slave trade through your taxes’. The infographic attached reported that ‘In 1833, Britain used £20 million, 40% of its...
Credit ratings and why they matter
The credit rating agency Fitch has recently downgraded their credit rating of the UK from AA to AA- because of the impact of the Corona virus and continued uncertainty about Brexit. Fitch believe economic output will drop 4% this year in the UK. Their concerns are...
Investments that are too good to be true
In the office mail today we received an unsolicited letter telling us of a 'legal money hack' on a mobile and how someone had made £10,233.97 profit a week, now having banked £338,273.22 profit. That's great news. What's even better is it's (apparently) free, but only...
Oil Prices – A quick explanation and why derivatives can matter
As you most likely will have seen in the media the price of some oil became negative for a brief period. The purpose of this note is to explain what has happened and its significance. Whether directly or indirectly the oil price can affect us all. Directly because we...
David Bowie, bonds and securitisation
Theoretically you can securitise any cash flow. Banks have securitised mortgages, credit card debts, and student loans. Perhaps less well known is the singer songwriter David Bowie securitised his music in 1997. How did this work? David Bowie used the future revenue...
What Britain’s maritime history can teach us about the City of London and Brexit
There are parallels between the Royal Navy and the City of London. Both have long and illustrious histories and have been part Britain’s power projection enabling the UK to punch above its weight in matters of politics, commerce and international trade. The make up of...
What bad baking can teach us about Collateralised Debt Obligations (CDO)
Collateralised Debt Obligations (CDO) are similar to other securitised debt such as Asset Backed Securities (ABS) and Mortgage Backed securities (MBS). CDOs are usually tranched. What does this mean? Tranche comes from the French word for a slice or wafer (la...
Bank of England emergency rate cut, and basis risk
As you may have seen in the news today the Bank of England (which is independent of the Government) announced an emergency in cut in the Base Rate by 50BPS to 0.25%. This level hasn't been seen in the UK since the Global Financial Crisis 12 years ago. What does this...
Guest seminar: private bank investments for a Chinese bank
Martin Berkeley of Corvinus Capital recently delivered seminars to one the largest Chinese banks on Private Bank Investments as part of the Alliance Manchester Business School's Executive Education programme. Delegates attended from China along with colleagues from...