- 2025-09-13 02:27:48
Kitchenware brand Procook is opening a new store at Bristol's Cabot Circus shopping centre. The branch will open its doors on Friday, March 7, and will sell cookware, tableware, electricals and kitchen gadgets. It will be the Gloucestershire-headquartered retailer's 66th UK outlet and will be based at Unit SU58 - a space previously occupied by Currys - on the ground floor of the shopping hub. The branch will employ eight people. To mark the opening, Procook said staff at the branch would be handing out "goodie bags" worth £25 to the first 50 shoppers through the doors at 10am on Friday and Saturday next week. Former Great British Bake-Off star Steven Carter-Bailey will also be showcasing his cooking knowledge with live demonstrations and tips for customers, the company added. According to Procook, the new Cabot Circus store will "complement" its existing branch at The Mall at Cribbs Causeway, in South Gloucestershire. Lee Tappenden, Procook’s chief executive, said: “We are delighted to be opening our new Procook store in Cabot Circus, a city renowned for its vibrant food scene and independent culinary culture. "It’s an ideal location for ProCook, where we can share our passion for quality cookware and inspire home cooks and food enthusiasts alike. We look forward to becoming part of this thriving culinary hub and providing an exceptional shopping experience for our customers.” The announcement comes just over two months after the Gloucestershire-headquartered retailer said it was “confident” of delivering growth after reporting an underlying operating loss of £1.8m for the first half of the year.
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- 2025-09-08 23:20:25
Julia Hoggett, CEO of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), has called for a shift in the UK's "perverse" approach to retail investment. Speaking on the Following the Rules podcast, she highlighted that it is currently easier for retail investors to put their money into crypto than heavily regulated assets such as corporate debt or government bonds, as reported by City AM. "We have a regulatory structure that has historically made it easier to buy a riskier product and then hardest to buy the least risky product in the stack, which is perverse," she stated. "(Debt) sits higher up the cap table in terms of its credit worthiness than equity, and yet we have made it harder for retail to buy plain vanilla debt...than we have equity or crypto," she added. Hoggett argued that it should be "much more straightforward" for retail investors to engage in these markets, which would help reduce the cost of capital for businesses and stimulate growth. Post-financial crisis rules classified bonds issued under £100,000 as retail products, subjecting them to closer scrutiny. This inadvertently discouraged companies from issuing smaller denominations and excluded individual investors from the market. A recent report by Barclays revealed that US retail investors held approximately $6.2 trillion in debt securities at the end of Q3 2024, while only 36 corporate bonds from 21 firms were listed in the UK's orderbook for retail bonds. Hoggett highlighted the discrepancy in regulatory approaches, noting that while corporate debt remains under tight control, retail investors are granted "all the access to (crypto) in the world". In a recent move, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) proposed measures to facilitate retail investors' entry into the corporate bond market by reducing paperwork for smaller debt portions. Hoggett sees this as indicative of a wider issue with risk aversion, which she believes has significantly hindered economic growth. "The UK's got the second largest pool of institutional capital in the world. We have not been spending it on ourselves as a nation, and we have been de-risking it to a point that has not been healthy for ourselves," stated the LSEG chief. She pointed out that the UK's investment shortfall could be up to eight per cent less than that of its G10 and G20 counterparts, leading to lower growth and consequently reduced tax revenue for public services. Hoggett argued against a "zero failure regime" in the UK, advocating instead for practical KPIs that could drive investment funds and regulators towards goals like advancing the green energy transition or enhancing financial security for retirees.
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- 2025-09-07 22:51:07
Women could risk emptying their pension pots 14 years too soon – and a decade earlier in their lifetime than men – according to modelling by a financial services provider. The research, released ahead of International Women’s Day on Saturday, March 8, found that, based on current pension withdrawal rates, women could empty their private pension savings by the age of 73. Legal & General (L&G), which published the research, said that, with the average life expectancy of a 60-year-old woman in the UK sitting at 87, some female retirees could be left with a 14-year shortfall between their private pension funds running out and the end of their lives. By comparison, men could see their pots run dry by the age of 83, the research indicated. With the average life expectancy of a 60-year-old man in the UK at 85, men could have two years of retirement without any leftover private pension savings. Katharine Photiou, managing director of workplace savings at L&G, said that, after decades of saving, the ability to withdraw money from a pension can create a “lottery effect”. But she cautioned: “What seems like financial freedom now might turn into uncertainty later.” The modelling used Office for National Statistics (ONS) life expectancy calculations as well as an Opinium survey among 3,000 people aged over 50 carried out in December 2024. The calculations made various assumptions about inflation and investment returns and that people would start making regular withdrawals when they turned 67 until their private pension pot ran out. It was also assumed that people had no other sources of income, such as property wealth or a guaranteed pension income based on someone’s salary. People will also be entitled to the state pension, the size of which depends on factors such as national insurance (NI) contributions. The research indicated that women are typically withdrawing less from their pension than men but have less money saved into it to start with, at £40,000 versus £87,500 for men. Of those receiving income from an income drawdown pension, women are receiving £625 per month on average, compared with £875 for men. However, women were more likely than men to have increased their withdrawal rate since they first started making withdrawals. More than a quarter (27%) of women making withdrawals had increased their withdrawal rate, compared with less than a fifth (19%) of men. The research was released as a survey of 2,000 people for savings and investment app Moneybox, which found that nearly one in 10 (9%) women plan to start investing this year, while 13% intend to increase their investments. Investing more was found to be the top financial goal among women aged 25 to 34 years old, the survey by OnePoll found. More than half (59%) of women who invested last year did so to grow wealth, 47% wanted to secure a comfortable retirement, and 34% were aiming to provide for family in future. Nearly a fifth (18%) of women who invested did so because they enjoyed it and treated it like a hobby. London and Northern Ireland had the highest rates of female first-time investors last year, the Moneybox research indicated. Lower, part-time salaries and caring responsibilities can be obstacles to some women – and some men – being able to save adequately for later life. Another study from money platform Intuit Credit Karma found that over half (59%) of parents have taken on new debt to afford maternity or shared parental leave, borrowing an average of £2,658. A quarter (25%) of these parents said they were still in debt when their child had started school. Women were less likely than men taking parental leave to say they had moved to a job with enhanced parental benefits. A fifth (21%) of men taking shared parental leave had switched jobs to an employer offering enhanced benefits, compared with 9% of women taking maternity leave, the OnePoll survey of 2,000 people across the UK found.
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