Reuters Investigates

BP – Tough to price in the consequences

Two graphs tell an apparently conflicting story: analysts forecast a steady recovery in BP’s dividends, but its valuation remains weak. Tom Bergin’s close look at the potential costs facing BP as a result of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill helps explain the latter, but less so the former.

This is going to hurt

In Britain, the coalition government is readying its “comprehensive spending review” later this month. Rather than get caught up in chasing which government departments or bodies will be cut, two of our reporters focused on a single council – in this case, the City of Birmingham, which happens to be the biggest local authority in Europe – and explored what it’s doing to prepare for the change ahead.

For a lot of people, the most visible sign of cuts in Britain will be at a local level, as services are pulled back and jobs are lost. In the leadup to the spending review details,  lobbyists in London have been doing great business. Check out their tactics for survival – although if you’re worried about your government contract but haven’t done anything about it, you’re probably already too late.

Morbid money-spinners

If the life settlements market seems ghoulish, here’s a British scandal which isn’t doing the image of the business any favours. It’s one of the worst the country’s seen.

Around 30,000 mainly elderly investors in the UK put their money into a company called Keydata, hoping to make a little extra cash to fund their own retirement with the promise of a healthy return.

What they were buying sounded kosher, even if it did depend on how fast their wealthy American counterparts were dying. Of course, the investors may not have known that.

As is so often the case with these things, the projections were a little optimistic. And then some other irregularities blew up. Around 100 million pounds went missing, one of the business’s partners dropped dead in Singapore and the investment company was shut down by the regulators, leaving British pensioners like Tony and Pam Tobin out of pocket.  The Serious Fraud Office is investigating.

Undeterred, the other key character behind Keydata is determined to fight the regulators’ decision.  ”I am someone who can make the impossible possible,” he tells us.

Whatever happened to the stiff upper lip?