New broom Mark Carney has a lot of paperwork to sweep up November 28, 2012 FROM the forthcoming report of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards to a possible resignation letter from Paul Tucker: Mark Carney has an unenviable reading list before he sets foot in Threadneedle Street as the new Governor of the Bank of England. If he wants a genuine cold-towel moment ahead of his arrival, however, he [...]
A tough-minded strategy gives 3i fresh hope of growth November 15, 2012 SIMON Borrows took a distinguished City pedigree to private equity house 3i in May, and his stewardship has bought the group some time to put its turnaround plans, announced in June, into place. Even activist shareholder Laxey Partners seems to have made peace with the arrangements. Yesterday’s half-year results gave further grounds for holding fire. [...]
Misselling set to cost banks £12bn October 18, 2012 BARCLAYS put aside another £700m yesterday to deal with soaring payment protection insurance (PPI) misselling claims, as analysts warned that other banks would also have to increase their provisions. Analysts expect the four biggest banks to have set aside an additional £2.2bn over the last quarter to cover PPI misselling, taking the total for the [...]
CITY CYCLISTS SHOW THEY CARE WITH OLYMPIAN CHARITY RIDE March 18, 2012 TEAMS from the City are signing up to CARE’s Gold Bike Ride supported by City A.M. on Saturday 23 June. The route will see cyclists ride a minimum of 65 miles and a maximum of 130 miles of the Olympic Road Race route a month before the nation’s competitors take to the saddle. A team [...]
Brussels accused of ignoring its regulator on hedging rules September 26, 2012 BRITAIN and Germany have hit out at the European Commission (EC) for ignoring expert advice on new short-selling and hedging rules and failing to give any reasons why, papers published yesterday revealed. Four other countries joined them in objecting to the EC brushing aside recommendations from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s [...]
City Moves | Who’s switching Jobs August 16, 2012 RSA The insurer has appointed Matt Hotson as its investor relations director. He joins from Cable & Wireless Worldwide, where he was responsible for corporate finance and investor relations. Hotson was also previously director of investor relations and strategy at Legal & General. Mercer Edmund Teo has been appointed director of wealth management, Asia, at [...]
Best of the Brokers September 3, 2012 ADMIRAL Credit Suisse has cut the insurance firm’s target price to 1250p from 1300p and downgraded its recommendation to “neutral” from “outperform”. The note cited weak car growth. MORRISON Nomura’s rating of the supermarket giant has been slashed to “neutral” from “buy” while the target price is down to 300p from 350p. A refocused Tesco [...]
City facing new jobs bloodbath November 5, 2012 THE NUMBER of jobs in the City is set to hit a 20-year low as London firms continue to lay off staff in the face of ongoing economic turmoil. City A.M. has been given exclusive access to figures from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) – and the prognosis for London’s financial services industry [...]
CFA charter has won converts beyond investment analysis January 23, 2013 THE Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter is widely considered to be the professional credential of choice for the investment industry. Its course is designed to provide the full breadth of knowledge necessary to understand all the major investment products, alongside instruction in financial reporting, corporate governance and economics. All this is underpinned by a grounding [...]
It might be prime time to refinance October 14, 2012 HISTORICALLY low interest rates and government schemes mean that it may make sense, for some borrowers at least, to remortgage their homes. But data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders serves as a stark reminder as to how tight conditions still are. In 2011, £46.6bn worth of remortgages were taken out by borrowers in 375,000 [...]