Green tipped for coalition September 6, 2010 HSBC chairman Stephen Green could stun the City by resigning to become the coalition government’s trade minister, it was reported last night. Green has been named as the frontrunner to take up the post after months of searching by Prime Minister David Cameron. He would succeed Lord Davies, who was lured away from Standard Chartered [...]
Vodafone and National Grid chairs to leave September 5, 2010 SEVERAL blue chip managers are awaiting calls from headhunters as two of the FTSE 100’s best-known chairmen prepare to step down. Vodafone has appointed City recruiter Anna Mann to seek out a replacement for Sir John Bond, who is expected to depart toward the end of next year. Bond, who has chaired the mobile phone [...]
LAWYER OF THE YEAR | The Shortlist September 5, 2010 OUR list of lawyers reflects the breadth of legal work in the City, from the head of a firm that has recently merged, to one who advised the government on the banking bailout, the chief of the financial regulator and a pace-setting female head of a flourishing boutique firm. Hard to compare? Yes, but they show [...]
Bank of Japan eases policy as yen climbs August 30, 2010 THE Bank of Japan (BoJ) boosted its cheap loan scheme yesterday, bowing to government pressure for action to protect a fragile recovery by curbing the yen’s rise, while cabinet ministers signalled they may intervene to weaken the currency. The yen surged more than one percent against the dollar after the central bank beefed up the [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 30, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES OSBORNE PLANS TREASURY STAFF CUTS George Osborne is planning to cut staff numbers at the Treasury by about one-quarter and scale back his department’s role as he attempts to lead by example in the search for sweeping spending cuts across Whitehall. The chancellor will reconvene the public spending “star chamber” this week and [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 26, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES BANKS BACK SWITCH TO RENMINBI FOR TRADE A number of the world’s biggest banks have launched international roadshows promoting the use of the renminbi to corporate customers instead of the dollar for trade deals with China. HSBC and Standard Chartered are offering discounted transaction fees and other financial incentives to companies that choose [...]
HSBC bid ups Nedbank rating August 24, 2010 HSBC’S proposed acquisition of a majority stake in Nedbank received a ringing endorsement yesterday as the Fitch credit ratings agency said it had put the South African bank on a positive rating watch pending completion of the deal. Anthony Walker, a senior director in Fitch’s financial institutions team, said the acquisition “should serve to strengthen [...]
Why the unconventional approach to global income can pay dividends August 24, 2010 FOR a manager of a billion-pound global fund that is more than a century old, Bruce Stout, fund manager for Murray International Investment Trust and a senior portfolio manager on the global equities team at Aberdeen Asset Management, holds few conventional views about the markets, the economy, and stock-picking. For a start, at a time [...]
HSBC first in line for stake in Nedbank August 23, 2010 HSBC yesterday confirmed it is in exclusive talks with insurer Old Mutual to acquire up to 70 per cent of the shares in Nedbank, South Africa’s fourth largest lender, in a bid to aggressively ramp up its offering in the country. The parties have not disclosed the terms of a potential deal, though analysts yesterday [...]
HSBC first in line for stake in Nedbank August 23, 2010 HSBC yesterday confirmed it is in exclusive talks with insurer Old Mutual to acquire up to 70 per cent of the shares in Nedbank, South Africa’s fourth largest lender, in a bid to aggressively ramp up its offering in the country. The parties have not disclosed the terms of a potential deal, though analysts yesterday [...]