FB Roundup: Hoare & Co, BMW, and Berkshire Hathaway
Youthful energy for Britain’s oldest bank
A 32-year-old member of the founding family behind Britain’s oldest bank, C Hoare & Co, has been promoted to shareholding partner.
The small private bank in London, founded in 1672 and still owned by the 10th and 11th generations (pictured), wanted to modernise and inject “millennial thinking” into the business, current partner Alexander S Hoare told the Financial Times.
Thus, Rennie Hoare (32) would replace three retiring partners in their 80s by summer, two of whom are 11th generation descendants of the bank’s founders.
The newly-promoted Hoare had been the bank’s head of philanthropy since 2016. Prior to that he worked at T Rowe Price, and Columbia Threadneedle Investments.
The bank, the FT reported, only has 15,000 clients, and only recently introduced online banking and contactless payments.
BMW recalls another 300,000 cars
BMW has been forced to recall 300,000 vehicles in the UK, because of a fault which causes some to suddenly stall and power-down.
It follows a similar 36,000-car UK recall last year, sparked by the death of a retired soldier who was killed when he swerved to miss a stalled BMW. The same vehicles—1 Series, 3 Series, Z4 and X1 models made between March 2007 and August 2011—had been recalled from the US, Australia, and South Africa in 2013.
The most recent extension of the recall was prompted by an investigation by BBC reporters, which proved the fault was more widespread than thought.
BMW is 50% publicly floated, but its voting shares are controlled by German siblings Stefan Quandt and Susanne Klatten. The global group reported a 2017 net profit of €8.7 billion ($10.7 billion), up from $8.5 billion the year before. Revenue was $122 billion.
Buffett takes bigger bite of Apple
Warren Buffett helped boost Apple’s stock to a record high, when he took Berkshire Hathaway’s holding to just under 5%.
Buffett—who says he was sent an iPhone X, but has never used it—bought another $75 million in Apple shares on 6 May, adding to the 3% family-controlled investment office Berkshire Hathaway already owns.
Apple’s Q1 results showed quarterly revenue of $88.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 13% and quarterly earnings up 16% to $3.89 a share.
Buffett is worth $85 billion according to Forbes. He has committed to giving away 99% of his wealth, and has already donated $32 billion. He told CNBC he had been sent the latest iPhone by “a very nice fellow, who even explained it”.
“I think he pretended he was writing to a 3-year-old child. He wrote me this very nice letter and explained what to do with it—how it wouldn't bite me or anything like that. I'm kind of screwing up my courage here and one of these days, I'll move.”
