A is for Afren
This year the City bade farewell to Afren, the first London-listed victim of the oil price slump, which fell into administration in July. The oil explorer ran out of road as the dwindling spoils from its wells in Nigeria and Kurdistan failed to keep up with its debt repayments. The pain of a 70pc fall in crude oil prices this year was felt from the North Sea to Saudi Arabia, where the kingdom has this month announced swingeing budget cuts.
B is for Buy to let
Playing the property market is becoming a lot less lucrative, after the Government announced in November that an extra 3pc stamp duty would apply to second homes. This tax raid, which comes into force in April, is on top of restrictions on tax relief for buy-to-let mortgages. Bad luck for property entrepreneurs; a stroke of good fortune for George Osborne, whose coffers will enjoy a £625m boost in the first year alone.
C is for Confetti
The weapon of choice for an activist who stormed one of the European Central Bank’s regular press conferences in April to shower president Mario Draghi. Josephine Witt, aged 21, was carried out of the bank by two staffers after she launched herself onto Draghi's desk, throwing confetti and shouting “end ECB dictatorship”. She later told The Telegraph she was protesting Draghi’s unelected position of power over Europe.
Mario Draghi glitterbombed during an ECB briefing
D is for Déjà vu
While London has seen a steady stream of companies joining the stock market this year, some of the names have a distinctly familiar ring to them. Housebuilder McCarthy & Stone returned to the market nine years after being taken private by HBOS, while the challenger bank Aldermore joined in March, six months after postponing plans to float when the markets lurched lower.
Also ringing in our ears was the echo of the Clydesdale’s owner NAB, as it repeated its year-old ambition to sell or float the bank as an “absolute priority”. Optimists may mark in their diaries the plan for a disposal in 2016.
E is for Emissions
Electric cars were given a big boost in November after it emerged that Volkswagen had been tweaking emissions testing results for up to 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide. The German manufacturer admitted “defeat device” software in its cars had ensured they produced acceptable levels of the pollutant nitrogen oxide when tested, while on the road the vehicles had been pumping out up to 40 times the legal limit.
The scandal cost several top executives their jobs, crushed VW's share price and led to questions about whether diesel itself had any future.
F is for Float flops
The London market has had a mercifully quiet year for disasters, possibly helped by the rash of deal-hungry private equity firms swooping in before their target gets near the stock market. But in the US, markets have hosted some painful crash landings. The list of flops includes Etsy, the artisan retailing website, which has lost about half its value since joining the Nasdaq in April.
G is for Glencore
It’s not just the oil price that has been imperilling companies during 2015. Glencore, the trading house that celebrated the apex of the commodity super-cycle in 2013 by swallowing the mining group Xstrata, has lost 70pc of its market value this year. The price of everything from aluminium to zinc has come clattering down on concerns that China’s appetite for materials is slowing.
In another corner of the commodities crisis, former Glencore chairman Simon Murray stepped down from Gulf Keystone Petroleum during a boardroom bloodbath, after less than two years in the post. Murray, a former French legionnaire who walked to the South Pole a decade ago when he was 63, claimed he was trying to flog the company to Exxon before investors forced him out.
H is for Hedge funds
The smartest guys in the room have had a difficult year. Even big names like Pershing Square and York Capital Management posted double-digit losses in some funds, caught on the wrong side of commodity prices, big-ticket takeovers and currency swings. Before unpacking the tiny violins, remember that one in four dollars held in hedge funds is managed on behalf of public and private pensions.
It’s also been a tough year for hedges in Fred Goodwin’s Scottish mansion, after the former RBS boss was ordered to cut down the 20ft greenery that “overpowered” his neighbours’ gardens.
Thorny problems for many hedge funds this year Photo: RICHARD BLOOM
I is for Imperial Tobacco
Otherwise known as the cigarette company that plans to drop the word “tobacco” from its name. One of the world’s biggest cigarette makers said earlier this month that it was transforming itself into Imperial Brands to better reflect “the brand-focused business that we are today”.
But was the plan smoke and mirrors? A spokesman added that “tobacco is at the heart of what we do” and that it was only the corporate entity was changing its name, not the domestic brands.
J is for Jes Staley
Staley is the American investment banker who replaced Antony Jenkins at the top of Barclays. Jenkins was abruptly fired by phone in July after just three years into the job, having been tasked with sweeping away Bob Diamond’s swashbuckling culture in favour of a kinder, more respectful bank.
K is for KFC
The chicken chain will be under new ownership in China within the year after its parent company admitted defeat in the fight to win the stomachs and minds of Asian diners. Yum Brands, which also owns Pizza Hut, said in October that it was spinning off its China business after a scandal over meat quality and failed gimmicks including pink burger buns had made business less appetising.
L is for Log Off Bookshop
This quaint retailer was set up this summer by the ousted Standard Chartered chief executive Peter Sands in Highbury, a stone’s throw from his beloved Arsenal. Sands is said to be a silent partner and “will not be working behind the till”. His wife, an author, is also a partner in the business, raising hopes that Sands will use his new-found free time to pen a tell-all account of his time at the troubled bank.
M is for Mega-mergers
Also known as the kind of deals that kept the City’s bankers in business this year. Break fees alone can run into the billions to guarantee a windfall for the hordes of advisers, even if the deals are scuppered by pesky tax laws or competition rulings. British-based giants including the oil firm BG Group, the phone company O2 and the brewer SABMiller have been at the centre of takeover pursuits this year.
However, the nationality matters less than the eye-watering synergies that executives hope to squeeze from these firms. In SAB’s case, the cuts are expected to save $1.4bn a year. The second most important thing is how to rename a firm that combines two already cumbersome behemoths barely strung together by acronyms. Anyone for a pint of South African Breweries-Interbrew-Ambev-Anheuser-Busch?
SABMiller is the subject of the biggest takeover this year
N is for Navinder Singh Sarao
Sarao is the trader who, according to US authorities, had a hand in the “flash crash” that briefly wiped 600 points from the Dow Jones in 2010. Sarao, a 36-year-old who lives with his family in Hounslow, is challenging an extradition request from the US Department of Justice over claims that he placed spoof orders for S&P 500 contracts that unsettled the rest of the market.
He spent four months in Wandsworth prison after the English magistrates set his bail at £5m – a sum that he was unable to access thanks to a worldwide FBI freezing order on his assets.
O is for Overheating
What the Bank of England fears is happening to the property market. From the buy-to-let boom to soaring commercial real estate prices, Mark Carney’s Bank is carefully monitoring the market for signs of instability. The Bank is also pondering a rise in interest rates in 2016, after more than six years at just 0.5pc.
The US Federal Reserve has already taken the plunge, nudging rates slightly higher after months of gentle hints and warnings to the markets that the era of easy borrowing was winding up. Fed chair Janet Yellen said the move "marks the end of an extraordinary seven-year period... to support the recovery of the economy from the worst financial crisis and recession since the Great Depression".
P is for Plastic bags
Micropayments, once the latest buzzword in online commerce and charity, have reached the real world in the form of plastic carrier bags. Since October, English shoppers who forget their hessian sacks have been asked to hand over 5p per plastic bag, with the proceeds intended for charities. Retailers get to choose which good causes they support, and Tesco expects to raise £30m in the first year for community and environmental projects. So don’t feel too guilty the next time you forget your bag for life.
Q is for Quindell
Having spent 2014 battling with a critical research company named Gotham, Quindell managed to plumb new depths in 2015. The firm founded by Rob Terry has now renamed itself Watchstone in an attempt to distance itself from a series of profit warnings, a Serious Fraud Office investigation into its accounts and the problematic sale of its legal division to Slater & Gordon, whose own shares have since fallen 90pc.
R is for Rolls-Royce
Reports surfaced this month that parts of Rolls-Royce's submarine division could be nationalised. While analysts immediately said the idea was "ridiculous", the contingency plans discussed in political circles highlighted how seriously Britain takes the engineering giant's troubled financial performance.
S is for Shirts
The ones that two Air France executives had ripped from their backs in October, during aggressive protests against job cuts at the airline.
An Air France exec is caught by a mob
T is for Tommy Chocolate
The nickname given to Tom Hayes, the trader convicted in August for manipulating Libor. Hayes, the first banker to be jailed for trying to rig the key financial benchmark, saw his sentence cut from 14 years to 11 after he appealed earlier this month.
Hayes’ staid mannerisms in the office were portrayed during his trial, with his colleagues at UBS and Citigroup recalling how he spurned sharp suits and drank hot chocolate while his colleagues got stuck into the champagne. Hayes’ own lawyers argued that he was “more Austin Powers than James Bond”.
U is for Unicorns
The buzzword for a new glut of start-up companies that have commanded a valuation of more than $1bn without joining the stock markets. Frenzied fundraising rounds this year for the likes of Uber, AirBnb and Snapchat have raised worries that these online platforms are, like unicorns, detached from reality.
V is for Varoufakis
Greece's short-lived finance minister Yanis Varoufakis rode his motorbike into the sunset this summer, suggesting with a glint in his eye that he could face treason charges over elaborate contingency plans to reintroduce the drachma to the troubled eurozone nation. Varoufakis, who was elected as part of the anti-austerity Syriza party, has now reportedly moved to Sydney "to have a quiet time".
W is for Wearables
The future is here, and it won't stop buzzing on your wrist until you've met your quota of steps for the day. The Apple Watch, launched in March, has been advertised as a lifestyle and fitness gadget that can track movement, heart rate and nutrition. The world's biggest company has not revealed how many watches it has sold but estimates suggest millions of people around the world have bought the gadgets. Fitbit, which makes rival tracking devices, claims to have outsold its competitors after a 200pc rise in sales this year.
X is for Xi Jinping
George Osborne might be the one wearing the hard hat, but the Chancellor hopes the Chinese premier will provide the hard cash for Britain's next round of infrastructure projects. While a longed-for financing deal for the controversial High Speed 2 railway has proved elusive, Xi's state visit to the UK in October brought a deal to fund a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point.
Y is for yuan
China's decision to devalue its currency against the dollar in August provided an uneasy reminder that the world's second-biggest economy will intervene in markets that move against it. The Shanghai Composite index of stocks and shares tripped over on Black Monday in August, when it shed 8.5pc in a day. Prices only stabilised after Beijing's "national team" mopped up waves of shares as they were sold off in a panic, and stiff restructions were imposed on selling.
Black Monday: a day to forget
Z is for Zopa
The peer-to-peer lender is spearheading a new form of credit that it hopes will support a £500m valuation in its own fundraising next year. An array of challenger lenders have sprung up in the space left by the banks’ new cautious credit policies, with several big names coming to the fore this year.
Funding Circle recently passed the £1bn mark for lending to businesses, while investors have been weighing up the high rates of return against the untested nature of the industry.
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