29 April 2011

Today we have a special report  from Scott Campbell – Fund Manager MitonOptimal  

Scott Campbell   , Managing Director and Fund Manager MitonOptimal

KATE EXPECTATIONS!

If you Google “Kate” this week the first name that appears is Kate Middleton which is not that unexpected. That’s before Kate Hudson, Kate Winslet and Kate Moss even. Some more less known information from Wikipedia is:

Middleton was born at Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading.She is the eldest of three children born to Carole Elizabeth (née Goldsmith), a flight attendant, and Michael Francis Middleton, who also worked as a flight attendant prior to becoming a flight dispatcher for British Airways. Her parents married on 21 June 1980 at the Parish Church of Dorney, Buckinghamshire,and in 1987 founded Party Pieces, a successful mail order company that sells party supplies and decorations.Middleton's two siblings are a sister, Philippa Charlotte, known as "Pippa" (born 1983),and a brother, James William (born 1987).The family have complained about press harassment of Pippa and their mother since Kate's engagement.

Middleton's paternal family came from Leeds, West Yorkshire, and her great-grandmother Olivia was a member of the Lupton family, who were active for generations in Leeds in commercial and municipal work.Her ancestors include The Rev. Thomas Davis, a Church of England hymn-writer.Carole Middleton's maternal family, the Harrisons, were working class labourers and miners from Sunderland and County Durham.

Middleton's parents were based in Amman, Jordan, working for British Airways from May 1984 to September 1986, where Middleton went to an English language nursery school,before returning to their home in Berkshire.After her return from Amman, Middleton was educated at St. Andrew's School in the village of Pangbourne in Berkshire, then briefly at Downe House.She continued her studies at Marlborough College, a co-educational independent boarding school in Wiltshire,followed by the University of St Andrews in Fife, Scotland where she met William. She graduated with a 2:1 (Hons) in the History of Art.

Not unlike the Royal wedding, there are great expectations about the UK Coalition Government’s austerity measures announced over the past 12 months. The UK was put on credit watch by S&P at the end of 2009 and the budget cuts and entitlements plus tax hikes have been impressive. The £81bn of cuts over the next four years is the equivalent of 4.5% of 2013-14 Gross Domestic product. Similar cuts in the US would mean US$650bn of public spending cuts, a far cry and significant increase from the US$65bn they nearly couldn’t agree on two weeks. The UK deficit is around 10% of this year’s GDP and an enormous effort is required to bring this into line. “Tackling the budget deficit is unavoidable,” Mr Osborne told parliament. “To back down now and abandon our plans would be the road to economic ruin”. Kate Expectations indeed.