If anybody needed a sell signal for the ill-starred $2.3 billion (£1.47 billion) Manchester United float here it is: George Soros, the legendary “man who sank the pound” on Black Wednesday in 1992, has bought in through his Quantum Partners investment vehicle.
Soros has had his fingers burnt already this year with a $10 million investment in Facebook, which has dropped like a stone since floating in May.
The Red Devils are now trading 7% below their $14 a share opening price: if US investors bothered to look across the pond at their unimpressive opening defeat at Everton – with an ineffectual £24 million Robin van Persie in the ranks – a few more might be heading for the exit.
APPLE most valuable company in the world, said headlines everywhere.
Well not really. The $622 billion market cap hit on Monday only works if you don’t adjust for inflation. If you do, Microsoft was worth $856 billion at its peak in 1999 and IBM was worth $1.3 trillion back in 1967.
So there.
* The British Property Federation has called for a “review of the company voluntary agreement system that pits landlord against landlord”. This followed Travelodge, the debt-laden budget hotel group, proposing the controversial insolvency procedure to slash its rental bill.
The only problem is that BPF has got the name of the process wrong, as the correct term is a company voluntary arrangement. Surely, if a trade body is going to call for a change to regulations, a good starting point is to get the most basic facts right.
* Don’t be fooled by talk of a bubble in an over-priced prime London property market, says research from fund manager LCP. Factors affecting the wider UK – the mortgage drought, employment and confidence – simply do not apply to London as a world capital, it says. PS: the impartial arbiter of this advice has around half a billion quid in property under management in Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea...
