INSIGHT

Housing prices up by 9.9%” ONS.
“How Help to Buy helped to fuel London’s property bubble” Daily Telegraph.
“The average annual gain over the next five years will be around six per cent” Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

In the days before international coordinated banking regulation it was often claimed that the Governor of the Bank of England merely had to raise his eyebrow in an expression of displeasure and the recipient bank would get the message and stop misbehaving.

A vast pool of liquidity has been thrown at the global economic system by the central banks since the credit crunch. One of the results has been flattening of all yields and general asset price inflation.

We are all familiar with the waggle-dance of the honey bee – the hyperactive figure of eight dance undertaken by returning bees to share with the hive information relating to the location of food so that other bees can forage the same source.

SORBUS is delighted that last night it was awarded Best Multi Family Office in Europe 2014 by WealthBriefing.

When looking to appoint a new professional adviser as a potential buyer inevitably you are faced with a situation where you are effectively buying a promise (or in most cases multiple promises).

“Disinflation or deflation is a growing global problem. In a world of falling productivity, there is no natural buyer of last resort; there is no one naturally demanding dollars so growth must be at someone else’s expense…”

The banking system failed spectacularly in the crisis. The supposed pillars of strength evaporated leaving governments to step in to pick up the bill on behalf of their respective populations.

One in six German companies have gone “off-grid”, that is generate their own power. Another 25% are considering joining them (source: German Chamber of Commerce).

As you receive this review we are mid-way through the largest collective democratic act in history.

It was reported in The Economist that one headmaster recently asked a room full of foreign students whether they flew business class to Britain. Only a few hands went up suggesting that they were perhaps not as well-heeled as he had anticipated.

2014 will see a resurgence in Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) – where the public are sold shares in companies floating on the stock exchange. The principal cause for this is that stock markets are relatively high and there is subdued volatility.