News

By Jane Ollis, MD of Rift Accounting Micro businesses and entrepreneurship are getting some great press lately and it’s fully deserved. There are now over five million firms in the UK with between 0-9 employees, a huge rise of 1.5 million since the turn of the century. The growth in micro businesses has helped drive the economic recovery and put entrepreneurs at the heart of British business. A new report from the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and...

By Ben Ramanauskas Greece has found itself in a modern day tragedy of Homeric proportions. However, this is a tragedy which is both very real and which has no heroes. There is no Achilles or Odysseus ready to save the day, only villains and victims. Whether it's previous Greek Governments who borrowed and spent far too recklessly, or the cunning investment bankers who helped them to hide their debt, or the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the German...

By Ben Gelblum, TLE Correspondent @BenGelblum What an excellent budget. As long as you are long-term employed, in a well paying job, under the age of 25, live in the South East and aren't ill or disabled then your chum George Osborne, king of the middle class elite, has delivered an absolute corker. Of course, that leaves a lot of people unaccounted for. The living wage (that isn't the living wage) is one of very few concessions offered to the...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor People expected an iron bar smashed across their face, instead they got a solid head butt. So, strangely, lying on the floor wiping the blood from your nose, you might feel slightly relived at today’s budget. PMQs was fairly flat as everyone waited for Osborne’s emergency budget, has there ever been a positive emergency? Of all the welfare cuts, inheritance tax give-aways and war on pot holes (we have worse roads than Namibia apparently), one...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  Second quarter figures released today have revealed notions of a 'Northern Powerhouse' could soon become reality with job growth rates in many of the UK’s northern cities soaring ahead of the south. Whilst London still held a 17.02 per cent share of the nation's 391,811 jobs last quarter, active job growth across the UK's top cities paints a very different picture. Despite Edinburgh only attributing a 0.62 per cent share of the UK's jobs, it ranks...

By Rohan Chatterjee @RohanChatterje1 On Saturday, all eyes in Latin America turned to the Copa América final in Santiago, Chile. The tournament hosts, Chile, beat Argentina from spot kicks in the Estadio Nacional as La Roja booked their place in the history books by winning their first Copa in its 99- year history. As is customary in Chilean football, the entire country was abuzz with excitement as 47,000 expectant fans crammed into the Estadio Nacional, creating a carnivalesque atmosphere. That is, all...

By Sean Michael Wilson Has any one else picked up on a perverse territorial defence mechanism being used against immigrants who challenge aspects of their adopted country? I recently saw a Japanese person say the following to a foreign person on Facebook during a long debate involving several people, both Japanese and non-Japanese: “…if you don't like Japan, you can get out from Japan any time you want!!! This is not your country. Why don't you go back to your country…” It was...

By Shahin Shamsabadi, Head of Business Intelligence MENA at The Risk Advisory Group We are perhaps only days away from a deal that could open up a country that has been shunned for nearly four decades.  This is a country that in spite of crippling sanctions boasts an established banking sector, infrastructural foundations in the transport, aviation and energy industries and a sophisticated consumer market.  A large, well-educated workforce, an abundance of natural resources, as well as more than 20 free...

By Roy Russell, Founder and CEO, Ascertus Limited The motivation for entrepreneurs to sell their businesses can be many. Mine was to grow my already successful, 12 year old document management solutions firm by being a part of a larger corporation. The notion of leveraging the support of the parent company to improve the offering and catapult the prospects – not simply of the business, but also of the staff – was appealing. At the time, the sale had all...