Daily Mail, Friday, August 30, 2019City Editor: Alex Brummer http://www.thisismoney.co.uk Business Editor: Ruth SunderlandCity Finance
£250 million
taxpayer cash
given to steel industry
to tackle pollution
Aramco shuns London for Tokyo
by Francesca WashtellAmigo loses
friends as its
shares halve
AMIGO Holdings halved in value
after warning it would shake up its
business model in the face of a reg-
ulatory crackdown.
The high-interest lender, dubbed
a ‘legal loan shark’ by Labour MP
Stella Creasy, saw its shares crash
51.6pc, or 75.5p, to a record low of
70.7p, wiping £359m off its market
value. It said it was prioritising new
lending over re-lending to existing
customers and would tighten its
credit policy.
Amigo provides cash for custom-
ers who struggle to get loans from
usual High Street banks, as long as
they have a family member or friend
who can act as a guarantor and pay
the sum if they fail to.
It is already under the spotlight of
the Financial Conduct Authority
(FCA), which raised concerns that
customers could be dragged in to
borrowing more and more from the
firm on interest rates of up to 50pc.
The changes announced yester-
day, designed to ward off the FCA,
will see Amigo cut its share of busi-
ness that comes from repeat bor-
rowers from 38pc to 20pc.
The firm’s chief executive, Ham-
ish Paton, said Amigo had to be
‘prepared to make decisions that
will have short-term negative con-
sequences but position us on much
firmer foundations for the future’.
The share slide came as another
blow for troubled fund manager
Neil Woodford, who owns 4.5pc of
the company.
The 59-year-old’s stake alone
tumbled by £16m, booking more
losses for his worried investors.£35m payday
for hedge fund
boss Harding
BILLIONAIRE investor David Hard-
ing bagged a payday of around
£35m last year, even as perform-
ance at his hedge fund stuttered.
Profits at Winton Capital Man-
agement, which invests clients’
money based on patterns it iden-
tifies in financial data using its
high-end technology, plunged by
43pc to £49.8m.
Revenue slipped by almost 30pc,
to £240m, although the firm
insisted it was still investing heav-
ily in its research, data and tech-
nology. But Winton Capital had to
let a fifth of its staff go, with the
average number of employees
tumbling from 375 to 296 over the
course of 2018.
Yet its parent company, Winton
Group, still managed to hand its
owners £67m in dividends during
2018 – just over half of which went
to Harding. This was slightly higher
than the £58m it shared out in- And already this year the
company has paid its owners
another £12.5m, putting a further
£7m in Harding’s pocket.
The 50-year-old Remain sup-
porter owns just over half of Win-
ton Group, while his wife Claudia,
co-founder Martin Hunt, US asset
manager AMG, and a number of
other employees share the rest.
The average annual salary at
Winton went up from £201,291 in
2017 to £204,078 last year.
Fears mount
over fate
of Cobham
Is Government
set to give green
light to £4 billion
takeover by
US predators?
FEARS are growing that min-
isters are planning to wave
through the controversial
£4bn takeover of Cobham.
MPs, analysts and the Cob-
ham family are worried the
deal will go ahead without
adequate scrutiny of the
knock-on effect it could have
on Britain’s defence industry
and national security.
American private equity group
Advent International has offered
to buy the 85-year-old defence
group in a 165p-per-share takeo-
ver that has been backed by Cob-
ham’s board. But opposition has
been growing since the buyout
was announced in July.
Among those speaking out are
the founding Cobham family and
MPs who have argued ‘one of the
jewels in the crown of the UK’s
industrial base is being sold on
the cheap’.
Business Secretary Andrea
Leadsom has met Cobham and
Advent to ‘listen to and under-
stand their plans’. The business
department is in talks with
Advent about ‘potential legally
binding undertakings specifically
on the economic implications of
the proposed merger’.
This is likely to include commit-
ments on jobs and the amount of
money Boston-headquartered
Advent will plough into research
and development at Cobham.
But critics argue it does not go
far enough, saying it disregards
concerns that selling Cobham
will erode Britain’s defence indus-
try and put our national security
at risk. The Government only has
the power to intervene in merg-
ers on public interest grounds if
they will pose a problem to
national security, media plurality
and financial stability.
But an industry source told the
Mail that the ‘national security
angle is not one that there is a big
worry about within Government’
with regards to the Cobham deal.
‘The biggest concern with these
things is jobs and where the manu-
facturing is going to be situated,’
the source added. Lady Cobham,
the widow of former chief execu-tive and chairman
Sir Michael Cob-
ham, son of founder
Sir Alan Cobham,
has said her late
husband would be
horrified by the
deal. She said: ‘It is
devastating news
that the Govern-
ment looks set to
completely disre-
gard the threat this
deal poses to UK
national security.’
Soon after the
deal was
announced, the
76-year-old wrote
to the Defence
Secretary Ben Wallace and
Leadsom urging the Govern-
ment to intervene.
She added: ‘I haven’t received
any response from Andrea Lead-
som after sending her a letter
outlining my concerns – indeed I
wonder if she’s read it.’
Cobham chief executive David
Lockwood has dismissed con-
cerns around the deal as ‘noise’
the company is ignoring. A Cob-ham spokesman said: ‘Cobham
has provided the Government
with all the information
required to date in assessing
this transaction.’
An Advent spokesman said:
‘We are actively working with the
business department and the
MoD to ensure that the acquisi-
tion of Cobham reflects our
responsible ownership
principles.’STATE-controlled oil giant Saudi Aramco is by Matt Oliver
poised to snub London and instead choose
Tokyo for a blockbuster stock market float.
In a blow to the UK, the world’s biggest
company is said to have lost its enthusiasm
for the City because of the rising chance of a
No Deal Brexit.
And Hong Kong, once another top con-
tender, is also thought to have been ruled out
because of the political crisis that has been
gripping the Chinese territory for months.
It means Aramco, which is controlled by the
Saudi Arabian government, is leaning towards
Tokyo for its highly-anticipated stock market
debut. This will be part of a two-stage proc-
ess, with the firm reportedly plotting to ini-tially list its shares at home before proceeding
with an international float in either 2020 or
2021, according to the Wall Street Journal.
If confirmed, the move would be an embar-
rassment for ministers and officials who have
spent years lobbying their Saudi counterparts
over the deal.
But although London was seen as a favourite
for the float when Saudi Crown Prince Moham-
med Bin Salman visited last year, Aramco
bosses are said to be concerned by uncertainty
surrounding the UK’s exit from the EU.
They fear a departure without a deal could
cause British regulators to align more closelywith their US counterparts – potentially mak-
ing Aramco vulnerable to legal action from
victims of the 9/11 terror attacks in New York.
A US congressional inquiry found links
between Saudi Arabia and the terrorists
although its official report was heavily redacted
and has never been published in full.
The claim Aramco was set to choose Tokyo
for its listing was not immediately denied by
the company yesterday.
It said it ‘continues to engage’ with the
Saudi government on plans for the float.
Last night a spokesman for the Treasury
declined to comment.
The London Stock Exchange also declined
to comment.‘Devastating’: Lady CobhamIn talks: Business Secretary Andrea LeadsomPage 77