Britain voted to leave the EU. The pound yo-yoed. It’s been a busy year – how much of it passed you by? Test yourself with our quiz. Compiled by Ryan Atkinson.
Money
1. Baking competition The Great British Bake Off will move from the BBC to Channel 4 next year. How much did Channel 4 reportedly pay Love Productions, the TV production company that owns the rights to the show, for a three-series deal?
a) £10m b) £25m c) £75m
2. How much is the construction cost of the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station project expected to be?
a) £5bn b) £18bn c) £37bn
3. Health service trusts that run hospitals for Britain’s National Health Service racked up a record combined deficit in the 2015-2016 financial year. How large was the total deficit?
a) £815m b) £2.45bn c) £15.3bn
4. How large is that as a percentage of the overall NHS budget?
a) 0.5% b) 2.1% c) 5.7%
5. How much did a consortium headed by Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest woman, pay to buy S Kidman & Co, an Australian cattle-farming company that owns 39,000 square miles of land (equal to 1.3% of the country’s total land area)?
a) A$1 – the company was losing so much money that it was sold for a nominal amount b) A$386.5m c) A$2.71bn
6. China’s Postal Savings Bank floated on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in September, in the world’s largest initial public offering for two years. How much did it raise?
a) HK$7.8bn b) HK$56.7bn c) HK$123.9bn
7. How much did it cost to convert the London 2012 Olympic Stadium into a new football stadium for West Ham United?
a) £54m b) £173m a) £323m
8. Installing new seating in the stadium was originally estimated to cost £300,000. What was the final price tag?
a) £400,000 b) £3.1m c) £8m
9. How much has Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first live action film in the Star Wars franchise for over ten years, grossed worldwide since its release at the end of 2015?
a) $1.53bn b) $2.06bn c) $3.71bn
10. How much did a collection of art formerly owned by the late rock star David Bowie fetch at auction at Sotheby’s in London?
a) £15.1m b) £21.9m c) £32.9m
People
11. Which football player signed a new contract with Real Madrid in October that will make him the world’s highest-paid player, on a reported salary of £350,000 per week after tax?
12. Who topped Forbes’ list of overpaid film stars in 2016, the second consecutive year that he has won this dubious accolade?
13. MPs called for which retail magnate to be stripped of his knighthood due to controversy over his role in the collapse of BHS and the size of the failed firm’s pension scheme deficit?
14. Navinder Singh Sarao, a self-employed British futures trader, was extradited to the US in November and subsequently pleaded guilty to market manipulation charges that were related to his alleged role in the “flash crash” of 2010. By what nickname was Sarao referred to in the press?
15. Who was the highest-earning singer in the world this year?
16. Which American casino magnate was the largest individual donor to Republican political candidates and organisations during the 2016 US election cycle, donating a total of $82m?
17. Who is the richest non-American on the Bloomberg Billionaires index, with a net worth of $71.3bn, as of 19 December 2016?
18. Which 25-year-old inherited a £9bn fortune, which includes 300 acres of London property, in August, following the death of his father?
19. Which politician has been suspended as president of South Korea over allegations that she helped a close friend to extort 77.4bn won (£52m) from some of the country’s leading companies?
20. Which iconic revolutionary leader died in November aged 90, having survived – according to one (possibly questionable) estimate – 638 assassination plots by the Central Intelligence Agency?
Companies
21. What is the name of the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers leak, in which an unknown source leaked millions of confidential documents that showed how its clients hid billions of dollars in tax havens?
22. In June, Microsoft announced that it would pay roughly $26bn to buy which social networking website?
23. Which Korean shipping line collapsed in August, leaving dozens of its container ships stranded at sea?
24. Semiconductor designer ARM Holdings, considered to be the leading British firm in the technology industry, was bought by which Japanese company for £23.4bn in September?
25. Which American bank was fined $185m for a scandal that saw staff opening accounts for customers without their consent in order to meet sales targets?
26. Which US companies are the purchaser and target in the largest acquisition announced so far in 2016?
27. Which mining and energy company reported a $6.4bn loss for the 12 months to June on the back of slumping commodity prices?
28. The Port Talbot steelworks in Wales, which has been at risk of closing since March with the possible loss of 4,000 jobs, is owned by which conglomerate?
29. Which British leisure retailer has seen its shares and profits plummet this year amid controversy over its treatment of workers?
30. Which Italian bank, founded in 1472, is attempting to raise €5bn in new capital to offset soaring bad loans, having already raised €8bn over the past two years?
Markets
31. What has been the best-performing currency this year, helped by rising oil prices and signs of recovery in the country’s domestic economy?
32. What has been the worst-performing one, based on official exchange rates at least, after the central bank abandoned its fixed exchange rate against the dollar at the beginning of November?
33. And which South American currency saw its black market exchange rate collapse from around 200 per dollar in January to 4,600 per dollar at its low in November amid hyperinflation and economic collapse?
34. The London Stock Exchange is set to merge with which European rival?
35. Which country withdrew 96% of the bank notes in circulation in an attempt to crack down on corruption and tax evasion, leading to widespread cash shortages and economic disruption?
36. A 20% drop in which pharmaceutical stock knocked 5% off the value of the Danish stockmarket at the end of October, reflecting the firm’s exceptional size compared with the rest of Denmark’s major companies?
37. Which stock exchange had the largest number of initial public offerings in 2016?
38. The market value of what topsy-turvy asset class peaked at almost $11.9trn in June before declining sharply after Donald Trump won the American presidential election?
39. What mining company was the best-performing stock in the FTSE 100 this year?
40. And which outsourcing firm was the worst-performing one?
Quotes of 2016: match the quote with the photo
1. “I would just patrol the streets, looking for trouble. I was really looking for a confrontation so I could kill.”
2. “To us they are Public Enemy Number One – to borrow the old FBI term – and are shot without hesitation.”
3. “Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power.”
4. “How much longer do you intend to keep living?”
Answers
Subscribers: click here to see the answers
Not a subscriber? Sign up now.