Podcasts

This is Conversations From Africa, Share Radio's weekly view across the continent & it's major news, with Chris Bishop, Managing Editor of Forbes Africa Magazine & Share Radio's Patrick Jones. This week they discuss the World Economic Forum on Africa in Rwanda & the host nation's rise from the ashes, plus a Forbes Africa exclusive, updates from an infamous South Africa's mine collapse several months ago, news out of the Central African Republic after the withdrawal of French forces & more!

This is the Responsible Investment show. Morningstar, the investment research and management firm, recently held its annual Investment Conference with social and ethically aware investing as one of the central themes. The event comes a year after Morningstar unveiled plans to launch the industry's first sustainability ratings index for global mutual and exchange traded funds. So what prompted that decision? Patrick Jones went to the company's conference where he put that question to San Lie, Director of Manager Research at Morningstar Benelux. But how transparent are your investments? Industry experts say that a lack of fee transparency in many funds is stinging buyers with hidden charges -- in some cases they're so high the investments could lose money. It's claimed some unscrupulous fund managers may be exploiting the lack of transparency for their own ends. Matt Cox was also at the Morningstar Conference and he asked Gina Miller a founding partner of SCM and an advocate of fee transparency, about how opaque charging can hurt investors. And finally, James Donald of Lazard Asset Management told the Morningstar conference how his company screens for Environment and Social Governance or - ESG - in companies that operate in emerging markets. Share Radio reporter Patrtick Jones caught up with him and asked him about the ESG qualities it looks for in emerging market businesses.

This is The Apprentice Investor. Regular listeners to the show will know that our Apprentices are five members of the Share Radio team who've each been given fifteen thousand pounds of virtual money to build their own individual share portfolios. They have a minimum of eight stocks which they've been buying and selling through The Share Centre. So....are our financial novices awash with riches beyond their wildest dreams...or are they drowning in waves of debt? Apprentices Matt Cox and Ruby Johnson are in the studio along with Ed Bowsher, Share Radio's Senior Analyst.

There is much uncertainty ahead of the EU referendu, and it is beginning to affect investment in the UK, according to leading business groups. The Confederation of British Industry says it now expects growth of 2 per cent both this year and next. That's down from previous estimates of 2.3 and 2.1 per cent respectively. Senior Analyst Ed Bowsher joins Georgie Frost to talk this and all other stories making the headlines today.

In line with Local Business Week, a new research study has revealed how organisations can go about improving knowledge based worker productivity. Karen Plum, Director of Research at management consultancy, Advanced Workplace Associates, discussed the results of the study on Share Radio Morning Money.

There's been more pain for UK plc's, with profits from investments in quoted companies at their lowest for nine years. We know this from the latest quarterly Profit Watch survey from The Share Centre, and its Chairman, Gavin Oldham, explained the findings to Nigel Cassidy.

Marc Shoffman discusses the month of Ramadan with Financial Journalist, Amina Zafar, who explains what challenges Muslims face when fasting. Tufail Hussain, Islamic Relief Deputy Director and Head of Fundraising, looks at the campaign behind the charity’s bus adverts and explains how Muslims work out their Zakat. He also talks about Islamic Relief’s projects and how they are monitored.

Shop Floor, in association with the Inspirational Development Group, opens with an insight into the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. Lord John Browne, QE Prize Trustees and former Chief Executive of BP, explains what the award represents for the profession and why there needs to be a social change to encourage children to become engineers. Neil Pickering, Industry and Customer Insight Manager at Kronos, analyses how British businesses can avoid wasting over £60 billion a year on unnecessary admin, while Leeson Medhurst, Head of Workplace Consultancy at 360 Workplace, explains why office space can affect a company's productivity.

Emma Alleyne and Francesca Gubbay have come up with a labeling kit like no other. Stamptastic helps to stamp children's clothes, instead of ironing or sewing labels that would otherwise go missing. The two mums from south west London meet Linda Lewis explaining how their company has rapidly grown and why, after winning a series of local business awards, they are pitching their idea to Sir Richard Branson in the annual #PitchtoRich #Voom competition.

Pavegen are a company who have come up with revolutionary technology that transforms the power of people's footsteps into energy. Linda Lewis meets the CEO Laurence Kemball Cook, who reveals how the company has teamed up with Tribal Planet in Silicon Valley to turn the data from footsteps into a 'digital currency' which people can spend using their mobile phone.