ICAEW’s Head of Corporate Finance, David Petrie, is joined by a panel of experts to discuss debt, equity and other funding options for small businesses in the light of government intervention as a consequence of the pandemic and the return to growth.
Graeme Sands | Author | Fresh Business Thinking freshbusinessthinking.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from freshbusinessthinking.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
5 UK shares to buy right now Image source: Getty Images
I believe the best UK shares to buy right now are those businesses that may benefit from the economic recovery over the next few years. And with that in mind, here are five companies I’ve been looking into recently with the view of adding them to my portfolio.
UK shares
The easiest way to invest in the economic recovery, in my opinion, is to buy companies such as
Severfield and
Balfour Beatty. The former steel manufacturer and latter construction business should benefit if the construction industry returns to growth over the next few years. The businesses could also benefit from the government’s infrastructure spending plans, which may lift demand across the construction industry.
Clydesdale Bank office, Glasgow By Scott Wright SHARES in Clydesdale Bank owner Virgin Money UK closed up nearly eight per cent last night after first-quarter results showed it returned to statutory profitability and made no further provision for bad loans amid the continuing economic fallout from coronavirus. But the institution set aside a further £49 million for payment protection insurance (PPI) pay-outs after processing of final complaints was completed on January 25. It highlighted a higher conversion of inquiries into actual complaints as the process ended, as well as higher levels of average redress and uphold rates. The bank has now processed around 740,000 complaints arising from the PPI scandal at a cost of £3.1 billion.
Weekly outlook: FCA investment pathways go live; Hargreaves, BP and Glaxosmithkline report
The key events for UK wealth managers for the week starting 1 February
Monday 1 February
– FCA investment pathways go live
Two years after the City watchdog published its proposed rules on investment pathways, the industry finally unveils its four “buy and forget” solutions for drawdown customers.
The project has received a fair amount of pushback from critics, including AJ Bell chief executive Andy Bell who called it “fundamentally flawed”, arguing the adviser-less solutions risk funnelling people into investments that do not suit their needs and are an excuse for “pension providers to line their pockets by peddling their own in-house funds with little or no control on fund charges”.