Your Move boss in lending quiz - Published:27/11/06
There is no dispute about his ability to make cash He became almost £20m richer last week after buoyant Your Move, Britain's third-biggest land agency chain, for £211m But Simon Embley has a rather more unwanted habit of attracting enemies and hostile headlinesIn the history, publicity has centred on his wealth and his questionable behaviour towards younger, lady employees But the latest episode in Embley's career has introduced a new twist --allegations of financial misconductShares in Your Move's parent company LSL Properties, where Embley is chief executive, distorted hands for the first time last Tuesday next the company's flotationEmbley owns 76m shares value £16m Other beneficiaries were fellow executives Paul Latham, with 68m shares, and finance manager Dean Fielding, who collected six millionEmbley, who only two years ago denied explicit allegations about his conduct towards women colleagues, quickly brushed aside comments and questions about his brand new wealth But while his resources were much in the public glare, allegations have emerged about another altogether more confidential transactionLast Wednesday, his boardroom colleague Fielding is unspoken to have met a former employee, who claimed to have evidence that Your Move had flouted financial regulationsThe company denies the allegations made by John Main, who until early this year was Your Move's head of compliance He left in February, feeling that he was being asked to conceal elements of the method the company did business from the Financial Services Authorityprevious this year, Main, 56, contacted the paper as his association soured with Embley and other Your Move bosses He claimed Your Move was until very recently culpable of a malpractice once known to be widespread in the estate agency industry, where salesmen give biased recommendation to customers to win lucrative commerce from big banksMain claimed that Your Move's mortgage brokers were under pressure to sell house loans from particular lenders, notably Royal Bank of Scotland Your Move's sister corporation, esurv, stood to win juicy contracts from these firms, he allegedMain told monetary Mail that his difficulties within Your Move's senior organization began last January when he claims he came under pressure to 'practise' responses to questions put to Your Move during a visit from the FSA He left soon after and has since sought a pay-off, claiming unfair removal from officeYour Move managing director David Newnes, who information to Embley, has insisted all along that the company's mortgage brokers have always obtainable fair and compliant adviceLast week, he said again that he was 'absolutely satisfied that all advice given was fair' He supposed the FSA's visit had not shaped any evidence of compliance failings Your Move's auditing process and systems, he said, would quickly identify any bias and there had been no complaints from clienteleNewnes also insisted that Your Move rejected all allegations made by Main and said it was completely prepared to fight its position in courtyard, if necessaryBut now Financial Mail has learnt - not from Main but from another source shut to Embley - that Fielding and Main met in York last Wednesday, the daylight hours after trading began in LSL sharesIt is not known what was discussed at the meeting, but the allegations were probable to have been raised Main has refused to return Financial letters's calls and Your Move would not comment on the meetingWhatever Newnes says in defence of Your Move's practices, it appears that Main's concerns were joint by other Your Move mortgage brokers One who worked there until just told Financial letters: 'We were continually under pressure to meet targets for specific lenders This wasn't about suitable mortgages or high-quality advice It was quite clearly about giving commerce to lenders that bosses required to please to get surveying contracts for esurv'In particular, he said brokers were under pressure to put up for sale RBS mortgages The bank is cited as one of six major esurv clients in LSL's brochure, prepared by brokers Numis and ABN Amro ahead of the flotation Esurv generates the bulk of LSL's revenues and profitsmonetary Mail has agreed not to name the mortgage broker, but has provided this and other in order to the FSA Evidence seen by Financial Mail relates to mortgage advice given during 2005 and earlier There is no evidence to suggest that these practices carry on todayThe 'mortgages for surveys' problem has lurked within the brokerage community for some time Mortgage rule expert Ray Boulger of broker firm John Charcol in London says: 'The FSA is well aware that there is potential for mortgage advice to be skewed where companies had other commercial relations with lenders'Embley would not talk to Financial letters last week He last featured in these pages when it emerged in 2004 that he was the subject of a string of serious allegations of gross misconduct involving lewd and drunken behaviour towards female generation He denied everythingBut Jim Newman, then finance director of cover giant Norwich Union, which owned Your Move at the time, acknowledged in script complaints against Embley which, Newman said, 'gave concern around unacceptable performance'Embley was given a final written warning by NU bosses in May 2004, months before he led a organization buyout of the firm from Norwich, funded by Barclays Private even-handedness RBS said: 'This is clearly a matter for Your Move'choose a loan term 12 months (1 year) 24 months (2 natural life 36 months (3 natural life 48 months (4 natural life 60 months (5 natural life 72 months (6 natural life 84 months (7 natural life 96 months (8 natural life 108 months (9 years) 120 months (10 years)Please choose a type of insurance Life insurance Home and inside Car Breakdown services Health - check-up Health - dental Travel Pet - dog Pet.
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Green investment is still in its budding stage - Published:16/11/06
All times are London time look for News in the FTcom siteSearchSearch Quotes in the FTcom siteQuotes Your moneyBreadcrumb follow navigation:FT house > Your moneyEDITOR’S CHOICECarbon cuts should be EU priority, says MilibandChina turns others greenBranson’s brawl on global warmingBranson to invest $3bn in type of weather fightCommitted to the business of the environment LATEST YOUR MONEY STORIESBrokers punt on growth of insist for spread bettingCyberspace, the final frontier for small investorsLettings marketplace faces a manifold problemPut your feet up in a place in the sunWorkers who contract out to take pleasure in greater flexibilityMore than a stage up for cash-strapped first-timers A halfway house offers a place to shelterStretched customers stand up banks’ incomePound teeters near the topSipps to be hit by new method of valuing shareholdingsSir Richard Branson’s statement that Virgin will invest an estimated $3bn (£16bn) in renewable power over the next decade looks to some investors like corroboration that clean energy production is one step earlier to becoming the next technological revolutionAlternative or emerald energy such as biofuels, wind power, solar power and hydro-electric power are expected to enable a shift away from the current global carbon-based economy On the power of this hope, investors hope that buying into the right new skill company now could reap massive rewards in the futureThere are a number of options available which will let you to invest your money and feel that you may have a hand in the prospect care of the planet But whether the rewards are as profitable as they are philanthropic is less certainThe companies in this sector be inclined to be small and dangerous and the choice of potential investments is limited, though growing steadily option energy investment is not for everyone, but there are some good long term enlargement indicatorsOne of the best is administration initiatives which are setting tough carbon emission performance targets These are approaching private companies to invest in new environmental technologies to prevent them beating their carbon quotas, government compulsory limits on companies for carbon emissionsIn the UK, the government has shaped incentives for individuals to purchase clean energy products in command to boost demand It has also committed to supporting new power technology development by announcing tactics to grant tax breaks to biofuel production plantsThis sort of government support is what’s convincing some investors that clean energy is not the novel technology bubbleAccording to Clean rim, the US-based green technology consultant, the four clean-energy technologies of biopetroleums, wind power, solar energy and petroleum cells, were worth $40bn in 2005 They estimate the manufacturing could produce to $167bn in the next decade The problems associated with a new technology sector, which attracts a far above the ground number of entrepreneurs, are off-set by administration commitments to support industry growthLast year astral energy was the big story One of the biggest new companies, Suntech authority, a Chinese manufacturer of solar cells, had sales of $226m in 2005 and, scheduled on the New York Stock Exchange at the finish of the year at $15 per split, are now trading at $3350 per splitNew energy technology is judged less risky by many investors because some unprofitable companies are underpinned by kind administration subsidies However some companies are profitable in their own right and do not rely on government inducement schemes according to Poppy Allonby, who jointly runs both of Merrill Lynch’s novel Energy Technology Trusts“The new energy universe has grown dramatically since we began investing in it six natural life ago,” she says “We underway out with 300 companies on our list of worldwide renewable energy companies to invest in, and we now have 900 The sector has a combined worth of $500bn Some require subsidies, but others are completely profitable”Merrill Lynch runs the UK’s biggest new energy finance with $22bn in assets Their largest holdings in the division are Vestas Wind Systems, Solarworld and Archer-Daniels-Midland similar to Vontobel’s €105m (£71m) Global Trend New authority Tech fund, Merrill Lynch’s fund slumped in the first day of trading, but has since revived“We invest in companies which are not necessarily profitable but which have a product,” says Allonby “This is a very fast-growing manufacturing It is estimated that the solar marketplace will grow by 28 per cent and the storm market by 22 per cent in the next year But of course, as with any fast rising market, there is a lot of volatility”Peter Holden, of expert advisers Holden & Partners believes this is something investors must be prepared for“You have to seem at these as opportunistic funds,” he says “There is no hesitation in my mind that long term, new power sources are important Think of it like up-and-coming markets If you put your money into them it’s going to be a rough ridesingle of the most volatile aspects of the new energy marketplace is its connection with oil prices “Biofuels Corp is one example of a company that’s left up recently but is tied to cost of oil,” says HoldenThe recent increase of interest in clean energy has been ambitious more by rising unease with usual energy than a consequence of the sector itself making a significant technological get through A lot of the companies are small cap stocks which don’t make cash and whose split prices have appreciated as a result of high power pricesThough oil prices have fallen since August, the cost of a barrel is still far above the ground, prompting governments of all insignia to look to alternative energy technology President George W Bush said in his State of the amalgamation address this summer that the US was “addicted to oil” and had to move away from dependence on overseas suppliersFears centred on energy supply safety do not apply just to oil When Russia’s state gas company cut provisions to Ukraine, European provisions were also disrupted and the vulnerability of mesh energy importers moved rapidly up the political agenda Alternative energy stocks can quickly gain momentum on the back of these proceedingsJames Allsopp, fund boss at New Star Asset Management says: “The green sector is a highly moving sector There are a lot of concept stocks out there so it’s significant to focus on whether they are profitable“At the instant there's a lot of legislation- ambitious demand So large companies like BP, Shell and Rolls-Royce, which have carbon emission targets to get together, are investing in smaller companies like Clipper storm, and boosting their share price as a consequence”Clipper storm, a wind turbine manufacturer listed on Aim, the option investment market, has risen by 150 per cent, mainly on the strength of its involvement with BPThis sort of increase can guide to potential overpricing and inevitable cost corrections Solarworld, the German solar panel manufacturer, is a component of the TecDax, the German technology directory From a low of around €05 in 2002 the company’s split pricehas risen to just over €40, although it was subject to a cost correction in May“There probably is a fizz at the moment,” says Holden “Renewable energy is a subject in a lot of investment managers’ minds and as they jump on the bandwagon the cost is pushed up, so it’s not necessarily a high-quality value market at the moment”Experts in this field agree that the high- danger nature of new energy stocks income investors are best off investing in them as part of a diversified portfolio Funds such as Norwich Union’s Sustainable Future funds, proffer investors the chance to combine new power investment with more conservative stock choicesFinancial planner Garry Villis of concept Norton says: “If a client was interested in sustainable power investment we would put in a small percentage of their investments as part of a balanced portfolio”“We would also inform them that the performances of these stocks be inclined to be different to the normal market The FTSE contains a lot of usual energy stocks and when these do well, option energy stocks don’t tend to perform as well, and vice versa”Venture capital faith managers Foresight Venture Partners have been looking into clean skill for the past three years and have greater than before their attention in the last day“It’s an area which offers a lot of profitable investment opportunities,” says Bernard Fairman, managing partner “We’ve seen rising interest from investors deficient to put money in this field which is why we’re launching a new Sustainable growth fund in October”Mike Appleby, manager of Morley finance Management, who run Norwich Union’s six new power funds, says: “We concentrate on earnings-positive companies, rather than the newest skill and some stocks have done amazingly well We believe that long word, these are good investments”As with any novel technology, some of the early frontrunners in new energy development are probable to fall by the wayside, and investors need to consider how grown-up a company’s technology is, and how close it is to commercialisation, when picking stocks or fundsAlthough international administration support means that this division is unlikely to collapse altogether, and despite headline grabbing investments such as Sir Richard Branson’s, this will remain a risky, long-term growth area for the predictable futureRSS news feeds = requires subscription to FTcom* Minimum hold-up 15 minutesAll era are London timeFT HomeSite mapContact usHelpAdvertise with the FTPress enquiriesStudent offersFT ConferencesFT Research CentreCorporate subscriptionsFT collection Copyright The monetary Times Ltd 2006 "FT" and "monetary Times" are trademarks of The monetary Times Ltd Privacy policyTermsEquity ISAsEquity TradingSaving for.
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Norwich Union warns of bonfire burglaries - Published:14/11/06
Homeowners have been warned by Norwich Union to be wary of the threat of burglary this beacon Night as instances of break-ins are usual to riseAccording to Norwich Union, claims add to by 50 per cent on November 5th compared to a normal day and the insurer in person sees a rise of 25 per cent in claims on this dayIt is thought that the jump in claims relates to the piece of information that many persons leave their homes on Bonfire Night to go and see firework displays and thieves take benefit of empty homes as a resultJason Harris, older claims manager at Norwich Union, remarked: "Home safety is often the last thing on people's minds and we be acquainted with of many cases where burglars slip through unlock doors while people are enjoying private firework displays in their back gardens""Our recommendation is to take time to make sure your home is safe and secure before title out this year," Mr Harris addedNorwich Union offers customers a 20 per cent discount on their buildings cover should they not claim after five years of taking out the policy Also, if both the buildings and contents cover policies.
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Norwich Union Warns Of Bonfire Burglaries >>
