A pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow awaits for Finian’s March 14, 2012 THE Sportingbet.com Queen Mother Champion Chase is always one of the most thrilling races of the National Hunt season, but this year’s renewal has already been written off as a poor contest. That is unfair on reigning champion Sizing Europe who slaughtered his rivals from the front in this race last year, following up his [...]
European markets rise on Greek talks February 20, 2012 EUROPEAN shares closed at a near seven-month high yesterday as Eurozone finance ministers edged closer to a long-awaited agreement on a rescue package for Greece. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares rose 0.7 per cent to 1,090.95 points. Volume was low, at 69.5 per cent of the 90-day average, with Wall Street closed [...]
BA set to pay up over price fixing claims February 20, 2012 BRITISH Airways is set to end a five-year saga over the regulator’s allegations of price fixing by paying a reduced fine. BA has held talks with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) over the £121.5m fine issued in August 2007. The British flag carrier is now expected to pay part of the charge, but this [...]
Liverpool, Suarez and Dalglish sorry for handshake snub February 12, 2012 LIVERPOOL chiefs have attempted to repair the damage caused by the Luis Suarez saga by issuing a series of apologies for his and manager Kenny Dalglish’s conduct before and after Saturday’s defeat to Manchester United. Suarez admitted he had been wrong to refuse a pre-match handshake with United defender Patrice Evra, the player he was [...]
Great, but club hasn’t gone far enough February 12, 2012 FINALLY, Liverpool have stemmed the tide of negative PR engulfing their mishandling of the Luis Suarez saga. Quite rightly they have demanded the Uruguayan apologise for embarrassing the club with his non-handshake and given him a public dressing down. Kenny Dalglish, too, has acknowledged his post-match defence of Suarez was wrong and only invited further [...]
Former Bank official blasts QE as an undemocratic and unfair tax on savers February 8, 2012 FORMER Bank of England deputy governor Rachel Lomax hit out at quantitative easing (QE) and the Vickers banking reforms yesterday, calling the asset purchase programme “a stealth tax on savers.” Speaking at Fathom Consulting’s monetary policy forum, Lomax was joined by another ex-policy maker Andrew Sentance, who warned persistently above-target inflation risked destroying the MPC’s [...]
A NEW THEME FOR THE EURO DESPITE AN AILING ATHENS February 6, 2012 ANOTHER week has passed by without a deal from Athens and the currency markets are clearly starting to suffer from headline fatigue. While the risks are quite serious, the markets continue to believe in an 11th hour deal – which is why the fallout in the euro has been relatively modest. Yet the longer the [...]
RAB boss exits after hedgie goes private January 30, 2012 THE CHIEF executive of RAB Capital has left the hedge fund manager, it emerged yesterday, marking the latest chapter in a long saga of tumbling assets and defecting clients. Former Credit Suisse executive Charles Kirwan-Taylor left RAB at the end of last year, having joined in September 2010. Michael Alen-Buckley, executive chairman of RAB, told [...]
This sorry RBS saga isn’t over yet January 30, 2012 THERE can be no doubt that the worst decision Stephen Hester ever made was to join a bankrupt and freshly nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland in November 2008. On the face of it, the mission he was given by the Labour government was exciting and vitally important: to turn around, drastically downsize and prepare for [...]
This sorry RBS saga isn’t over yet January 29, 2012 THERE can be no doubt that the worst decision Stephen Hester ever made was to join a bankrupt and freshly nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland in November 2008. On the face of it, the mission he was given by the Labour government was exciting and vitally important: to turn around, drastically downsize and prepare for [...]