Funds

Charles Stanley Direct has cut its share dealing rate by 25% to £7.50 per trade for the whole of January, in a bid to encourage clients to annually rebalance their portfolios.

Alliance Trust Savings (ATS) is increasing the annual administration fee for the platform by up to £35 from the start of February.

Hargreaves Lansdown co-founder Peter Hargreaves has questioned the need for businesses to pay corporation tax, saying he has "never understood" the concept.

Aegon UK is to buy Novia Investment Services Limited (NISL) from parent Novia Financial in a deal which brings its platform development business in-house, Investment Week can reveal.

Hargreaves Lansdown co-founder Peter Hargreaves has donated close to £1m in company shares to charity.

Next year will bring the realisation that super clean is not so super, predicts Fidelity FundsNetwork, with rebates trumping super clean share classes.

Neil Woodford's £1.4bn Edinburgh IT is again trading on a premium to NAV as appetite for the trust returns despite his forthcoming exit from Invesco Perpetual.

INVESTMENT TRUSTS

Zurich UK Life has appointed Richard Romer-Lee's new consultancy firm to help with the launch of a new investment fund proposition for its intermediary platform in the coming year.

After Shinzo Abe took power late last year, Japan has been 2013's undisputed success story.