Jeremy Warner

Known for his insightful and sometimes hard hitting analysis The Independent's Business and City Editor Jeremy Warner is one of Britain's leading commentators on business, economic and financial affairs. A serial winner of awards, he has worked on The Independent since its inception in 1986. In 1996 the British Guild of Newspaper Editors gave him a special award for "an outstanding contribution in defence of the media" for his refusal to disclose sources in a high profile Government investigation

Jeremy Warner: When interest rates reach zero, what does the Bank do then?

Outlook: Things must be bad, mustn't they, if interest rates have been cut all the way down to 2 per cent, the lowest since 1951 and indeed equal lowest in the Bank of England's entire 314-year-history, with markets predicting still more reductions to come? Well, plainly they are, but it is an interesting thought that though rates as low as these can hardly be described as "a return to normality", in the broad sweep of history, they are not as unusual as you might think.

Recently by Jeremy Warner

Jeremy Warner: Cynicism of the mortgage plan

Friday, 5 December 2008

Outlook: Following my generally positive note yesterday on the Government's proposed mortgage-relief scheme, a banker calls to tell me I'm talking nonsense and to point out that the largesse of the taxpayer in underwriting a two-year moratorium on mortgage repayments for the unemployed is far from free.

Jeremy Warner: Savers ignored in the rush to zero interest rates

Friday, 5 December 2008

Outlook: Good news. Interest rates are going down – for millions of borrowers. Bad news. Interest rates are going down – for millions of savers. While falling interest rates make profligate borrowers better off, it makes those who have laboriously saved for a rainy day worse off. As a nation, we have become so seriously indebted that reducing the cost of money puts more back into the economy than it removes from those who rely on their savings for all or part of their income.

Jeremy Warner: Biotech faces funding crisis

Friday, 5 December 2008

Outlook: A high-level group of entrepreneurs, business leaders and scientists, including Sir Christopher Evans and Sir Richard Sykes, is warning that the financial crisis threatens meltdown in Britain's once-thriving biotech industry unless the Government steps into the breach with alternative funding. Welcome to the club. Just about every industry in the land is holding out the begging bowl right now.

Jeremy Warner: Sterling was far too high. Now it may be going the other way

Thursday, 4 December 2008

Outlook: Jose Manuel Barroso, head of the European Commission, thinks Britain is “closer than ever before” to joining the euro and even claims to have had conversations with senior members of the UK Government to that effect. Meanwhile, Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, would be more than happy to welcome us in.

Jeremy Warner: Sibir Energy’s lesson in caveat emptor

Thursday, 4 December 2008

Outlook: Ah, the perils of investing in Russia. M&G, Black Rock and other top-drawer London-based investors might have thought when they bought shares in Sibir Energy they were investing in a Siberian oil and gas play, but in fact it turns out they were buying into a Moscow property company with a portfolio of largely uncompleted development projects.

Jeremy Warner: Mortgage plan may be smarter than it looks

Thursday, 4 December 2008

Outlook: Brown’s mortgage relief plan is smarter than it looks. On the face of it, underwriting lenders who allow those who lose their jobs to defer their mortgage payments for up to two years is an outrageous use of taxpayers’ money as well as amounting to unwarranted interference in a necessary housing market adjustment.

Jeremy Warner: British Airways adds Qantas to list of marriage partners

Wednesday, 3 December 2008

Outlook That two-timing Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways, has been playing the field again. Not content with his ongoing courtship of Spain's Iberia, or even his on-off affair with American Airlines on revenue, sales and cost-sharing, he's also been sweet-talking the Australian carrier Qantas, though you must please understand that it wasn't any part of Mr Walsh's doing. It was apparently Qantas that made the approach. What can a man do when such an attractive-looking Sheila throws herself at your feet?

Jeremy Warner: 'Not guilty', plead bankers on small business lending

Wednesday, 3 December 2008

Outlook Forget the bankers, it may be as much suppliers and customers who are to blame for the present squeeze in small business lending. In launching its "charter for small businesses" yesterday, Lloyds TSB insisted that, far from reducing its small business lending over the past year, it had increased it by 18 per cent, with the average amount drawn rising from 50 per cent of overdraft limits to 58 per cent. These figures seem to conform with separate data from the British Bankers' Association suggesting an overall uplift of 10 per cent in lending to SMEs among the major banks.

Jeremy Warner: The real carnage comes after Christmas

Wednesday, 3 December 2008

Outlook Little sign yet of the wheels coming off the Tesco juggernaut. UK like-for-like sales growth of "just" 2 per cent is the slowest since the early 1990s, but there is no profits warning, as forecast by some. Given that the growth being reported is all volume, with no contribution from inflation, performance doesn't look that bad.

Jeremy Warner: New Star in meltdown as shares plunge

Tuesday, 2 December 2008

Outlook: As founder of first Jupiter and later New Star Asset Management, there is no doubting John Duffield's talents as a serial entrepreneur and money maker, yet the skids have been under his once buoyant share price for more than a year now. After yesterday's calamitous attempt to suspend trading in the shares, they have become worth little more than option money.

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