It hasn t taken long for Baltimore-based Chris Berrier to make an impact at Jupiter US Smaller Companies, a fund he was appointed to run in April by its board of directors after the retirement of the previous manager.
For a start, the trust s name has since been changed to Brown Advisory US Smaller Companies in acknowledgement of the US company Berrier has worked for since the early 2000s. The fund s charges have also been tickled down to give shareholders a bigger slice of future returns.
But more importantly, the portfolio has been overhauled with only two of the 37 holdings that Berrier inherited surviving. The result is a £165million trust that today comprises 79 stocks with a strong emphasis on health care and IT companies.
Fraud victim Catriona Oliphant is one of the lucky ones. Through steely determination – and help from The Mail on Sunday – she recently managed to get her bank to reimburse £239,000 scammed from her account.
But Catriona, a highly-regarded lawyer, was not content. Outraged by the complacency shown by Action Fraud – a national hub for reporting fraud – over investigating her case she vowed to take matters into her own hands. Last week, she decided to track down the scammers with The Mail on Sunday alongside her.
Although Catriona was thwarted at the last moment by a desperate plea from Action Fraud not to interfere in an ongoing investigation – a request we felt we could not ignore – the ease with which we tracked down those involved in the scam raises serious questions over Action Fraud s willingness and ability to tackle the rising tide of financial crime.
Handouts: Companies gain a valuable insight into the habits of customers who use apps
Tens of thousands of M&S customers have picked up their shopping for free in the past year – the equivalent of half a dozen people every hour.
The handouts don t come from a wealthy benefactor. They are gifted at random by the store itself – a cheerful surprise delivered at the checkout for those with a digital Sparks card on M&S s mobile phone app.
It has been nearly a year since M&S relaunched its loyalty card scheme. The revamp last July replaced a physical card and points-based system with instant rewards and treats offered via its digital alternative.
Royal Mail has blocked bonuses and share awards to senior executives worth £1.4million after painful delays meant mountains of parcels did not arrive on time over Christmas, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The postal firm said it took the decision after considering the impact of service failures, slower than planned modernisation and admitting revenue had been boosted by contracts to support the Government s pandemic response.
The festive chaos was described at the time as a strategic nightmare as pictures emerged of parcels piled high, and customers experienced weeks of delays. Royal Mail had already angered customers during the pandemic after Covid-related absences, high volumes of mail and social distancing caused significant logjams.
There are two stories embedded in the continuing chaotic disruption to global travel. One is that Britons are in danger of losing another summer of foreign holidays, with traditional destinations losing a large chunk of their business.
The other is that the world s largest industry, travel and tourism, is taking a huge and to some extent unnecessarily large hit, leaving wounds that will take several years to heal.
For many British families this is misery. How on earth do you plan a foreign holiday when our own rules keep on changing and other countries open and shut their doors at every new story about the advance or retreat of the virus? The result is that many people won t get the holidays they were looking forward to at all.