Investors sell Samsonite shares September 17, 2012 PRIVATE equity firm CVC Capital and Royal Bank of Scotland sold a combined 153.6m shares in luggage maker Samsonite International yesterday, raising HK$2.22bn (£175m), according to reports in IFR. The deal originated from a reverse enquiry and was sold to a small number of global investors, the report said. The vendors sold at HK$14.50 per [...]
PPI fuels surge in complaints about banks September 27, 2012 BANKS defended their customer service reputation yesterday as figures showed that complaints have soared nearly two thirds in the last six months, fuelled by the payment protection insurance (PPI) scandal. The Financial Services Authority received a whopping 3.6m complaints in the first half of the year, as grievances lodged about PPI more than doubled to [...]
Nationwide to scrap interest-only loans October 4, 2012 ONE of the UK’s biggest mortgage lenders yesterday said it would withdraw interest-only mortgages to future homeowners from next week, in a further sign of the squeeze on higher risk lending. Nationwide Building Society, the third biggest mortgage lender in the country, wrote to brokers yesterday saying it would stop offering the mortgage on 11 [...]
City Moves | Who’s switching Jobs September 25, 2012 Kleinwort Benson The private bank has appointed Jason Turner to the position of executive private banker in its private wealth management team. He joins from UBS Wealth Management, where he was a client adviser. Turner has over 14 years’ experience in the industry, and has also worked as a financial adviser with Bank of Scotland [...]
RBS praised for quick clean-up of IT meltdown September 3, 2012 THE ROYAL Bank of Scotland (RBS) reacted quickly and effectively to its IT crisis in late June, an influential committee of MPs has declared today – but now bears a major responsibility to restore faith in the system. The Treasury Select Committee has published a series of letters to and from RBS boss Stephen Hester [...]
Hibu’s rollercoaster continues as major shareholder cuts stake September 5, 2012 TROUBLED Yellow Pages publisher Hibu yesterday saw its share price surge back as much as 50 per cent from Tuesday’s losses as it officially unveiled a committee of creditors tasked with restructuring the ownership of the firm. The firm confirmed reports that Alcentra, GE Corporate Finance Bank, Gruss Asset Management, Blackstone’s GSO Capital, QP SFM [...]
Mouchel set to restructure August 1, 2012 MOUCHEL yesterday agreed to a restructuring that will give its lenders a majority interest in the British infrastructure firm and delist the company to avert an impending debt default. The restructuring – supported by Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays – will result in the lenders releasing £87m of Mouchel’s existing debt [...]
Aquantum launches its own fund management business August 27, 2012 AQUANTUM Group, a quantitative index provider led by a group of former scientists, yesterday announced plans to roll out its own fund management business. The firm, which has a UK office in Oxford in addition to bases in Munich, New York and Luxembourg, will start offering managed futures funds for high net worth individuals and [...]
Virgin Money aims for 5m bank customers by end of the year August 19, 2012 VIRGIN MONEY said yesterday it is on course to reach 5m customers by the end of the year as it reaps the benefit of rival banks’ scandals and payment problems. Virgin, which had around 4m customers after it spent £747m buying Northern Rock from the government in November, said that since the January merger it [...]
Who’s switching jobs September 12, 2012 Axa UK Yves Masson has been appointed to the position of chief executive of personal direct and partnerships at the UK division of the insurance and asset management group. He has worked at Axa since 1985, and was most recently chief executive of Axa Direct Assurance. Masson has also previously served as chief executive of [...]