Nigel Fairbrass

Insights Nigel Fairbrass Uncategorised

Fishful Thinking

Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse confirmed almost half a billion dollars in fines and $200m of Mozambican debt relief this week, following successive regulatory investigations into the so-called “tuna bonds” scandal. Credit Suisse and VTB, a Russian investment bank, had arranged $2bn of bonds and loans for Mozambique, ostensibly to set up a state-backed tuna […]

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 4 June 2021

Trust in the Trust – a restoration project

The ousting of Tim Parker last week, chairman of the National Trust, has been hailed as another skirmish in the wider culture wars. Variously accused of politicising the National Trust by pandering to such modish causes as Black Lives Matter and gay rights, Parker was undone by Restore Trust, a fifth column of Trust members […]

Tags featured

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 27 November 2020

Covid Vaccines – A dose of reality

It was a moment to rival the climax of the Cuban missile crisis. Or perhaps the declaration of victory in Europe in 1945. In Hollywood’s hands, world leaders would have been waiting anxiously by silent telephones, and crowds would have flocked expectantly to town squares to hear the news (socially-distanced of course). But in the […]

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 27 September 2020

A weak hand

The UK gambling sector has been on a dismal losing streak. Seemingly mired in perpetual tabloid scandal, the sector has become a byword for consumer exploitation. Lurid headlines about children gambling, addictive products, suicides, and the appropriation of sport for commercial gain have provided the backdrop to a slew of new and proposed market restrictions. […]

Tags featured

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 26 May 2020

False Idols

For an administration that once derided experts, the Government’s reliance on scientific advice through the C-19 crisis has marked a stunning revision. Whether it’s Boris Johnson’s supplication to be ‘guided by the science’ or the flanking of ministers by the high-priests of public health every evening, the ruling class have clung to the authority of […]

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 23 March 2020

‘Let us go forward together’

As the UK Chancellor prepares the biggest peacetime package of economic assistance this country has ever known, shrill pleas for aid from the business community will be ringing in his ears. But as business fixates on what the country can do for them, they should also be aware that the Chancellor will be haunted by […]

AI Robot Characters Vector art illustration.Copy Space. Artificial intelligence Robot (Robotic arm) carrying a gear.

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 21 February 2020

Active investors: rise of the machines

The automation revolution was supposed to come for Lincolnshire fruit pickers, not Mayfair stock pickers. Yet this week saw further evidence of the accelerating shake-out in the active fund management sector, driven by the march of the machines. Merian Global Investors fell gratefully into the arms of Jupiter, in a £419m deal that creates the […]

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 29 November 2019

Blistering Billionaires

Billionaire magnate Michael Bloomberg’s decision to run for the US Presidency put the societal value of the super-rich back in the debate this week. Bloomberg is worth an estimated $55 billion and is standing as a Democrat where his fortune is considered less proof of his ability than evidence capitalism is broken.

Mike Coupe, Chief Executive of Sainsbury's

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 30 September 2019

Sainsbury’s – Best Before?

‘The difference between winning and losing is simply not quitting’, said Walt Disney. The enduring CEO of Sainsbury’s, Mike Coupe, might have echoed that sentiment this week as he unveiled an all-new strategy for the grocer, only five months after the collapse of his planned takeover bid for rival Asda. Coupe was the main architect […]

Insights Nigel Fairbrass

Post author By Nigel Fairbrass
Post date 28 June 2019

Oil’s well that ends well – BP and Mark Rylance

Prologue: Sir Mark Rylance, Oscar-winning English actor, playwright and director, publicly resigned from the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) last week in protest at oil giant BP’s sponsorship of the theatre group. Rylance declaimed in a soliloquy to The Guardian that: “I do not wish to be associated with BP any more than I would with […]