Spie eyes float haul of €1.2bn September 29, 2014 FRENCH energy firm Spie yesterday said it aimed to raise as much as €1.2bn in its forthcoming stock market debut to value it at €2.75bn. Spie’s co-owner Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, which floated B&M Retail in London earlier this year, is hoping to sell €694m of existing stock alongside co-owner Ardian. A further €525m will [...]
City A.M.’s MD Lawson Muncaster takes on Lloyd’s building: He came, he saw, he abseiled down September 6, 2015 It happened! City A.M. co-founder and managing director Lawson Muncaster finally delivered over the weekend, after promising to abseil down the Lloyd’s building earlier in the summer. Muncaster, who made the descent along with the Lord Mayor and 85 City bosses, did so as part of the run-up to City Giving Day later this month. [...]
Pocket money inflation exceeds parent wage hikes August 18, 2015 Bad news for working parents: the average allowance for UK youngsters is growing at an unprecedented rate, and it’s even outstripping their parents’ wage growth this year. Average pocket-money for eight-15 year olds has soared by 448 per cent in nearly 30 years, compared with just a 193 per cent increase in parents’ income over [...]
Lloyds on FTSE loserboard over tests on capital – London Report October 27, 2014 BRITAIN’S top equity index fell yesterday, weighed down by financials after Lloyds only narrowly passed a regulatory health check of Europe’s banks. The FTSE 100 index fell 0.4 per cent to 6,363.46 points, after managing a slight rebound last week from 15-month lows touched earlier in October. The index has come down from a more [...]
HBOS report: Crisis probe is the Never-Ending Story November 19, 2015 It has been 2,617 days since Lloyds TSB’s merger with HBOS was struck. Today – at last – we will get the fullest account yet of why HBOS needed rescuing in the first place. The delay in publication isn’t the least shocking aspect of Britain’s banking crisis. If the purpose of such inquiries is to [...]
Ladies who don’t lunch: Maike Currie talks to financial services entrepreneur Joanne Smith about dry January and why compliance is the “new rock ‘n roll” February 18, 2016 My lunch date with Joanne Smith, financial services veteran turned entrepreneur, is long overdue. I have been using stalling tactics and to be honest it’s due to her area of expertise: compliance. (Read: boring box-ticker.) But it’s a New Year and, cloaked in noble resolutions, I finally make the time to meet her at a [...]
UK immigration: Businesses including Asda, Lloyds Banking Group, Rolls-Royce, Siemens warn Tories over migration curbs August 14, 2015 Britain’s biggest businesses have warned the government against tightening rules for employing foreign workers, saying that new restrictions could increase costs, jeopardise graduate schemes and encourage firms to move their operations overseas. Asda, Lloyds Banking Group, Rolls-Royce, Siemens and others made their case in formal submissions to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), a group of [...]
London Fintech Week 2015 events: Who, what, where & when September 13, 2015 Trading apps at the ready; London Fintech Week starts today! With the capital being the biggest force for innovation in financial technology right now, this week of talks, conferences and startup demos will be the world’s biggest business geek-out. The events start at 8:30am each day and finishes late, so try to make [...]
As the Walkie Talkie is awarded the Carbuncle Cup, is it really the UK’s worst new building? September 2, 2015 James Hughes, conservation adviser at The Victorian Society, says Yes The Walkie Talkie’s “victory” in this year’s Carbuncle Cup is a vindication of our director’s argument in City A.M. in January that it is London’s ugliest building. It was the most nominated entry and its crowning demonstrates that it’s not just conservationists who feel that [...]
Golden touch: Global Group founder Johnny Hon talks Kung Fu Panda, the Northern Powerhouse, Glenn Close and human rights November 15, 2015 Did you sell sweets to all your classmates? I ask Johnny Hon, interjecting as he talks about his childhood. “Yes, I did actually,” he chuckles, before moving back to explaining how he never took money from his parents after the age of 18, and ended up selling second-hand cars to fund his education. “They taught [...]