M&S sold ISAs and pensions for while in the ‘90s. Richard Branson had a go. Halifax and the Pru made millionaires of quite a few estate agents when they bought them out, thinking it would be an easy way to flog mortgages and endowments. John Lewis has seen that the end is nigh for the department store so is looking for other stuff to flog to its ABC1 customer list. It didn’t take long for then others to find that actually, the stuff we do and the regulator we serve are a tad more complicated than they thought. M&S pensions are now part of Reassure. Their funds are run by HSBC. Good luck, then, to both John and Lewis.
“Tariffs through time: have they ever worked?”
History may not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes. Is what Trump is doing as ‘unprecedented’ as every headline proclaims? I’m sure other wiser writers have spotted some of these historical echoes, but let’s remember some headlines from US history.
