GOLDMAN’S OUTSPOKEN PRESS AIDE SIGNS OFF February 2, 2012 LUCAS VAN Praag was well-known for firing cerebral, elegantly worded scorn on anyone who crossed paths with Goldman Sachs. So the PR man’s exit from the bank, as confirmed yesterday, was similarly well-phrased. “C’est la vie,” emailed Goldman’s chief spokesman, the logical conclusion to the leak earlier this week that Jake Siewart, former aide to [...]
GOLDMAN’S OUTSPOKEN PRESS AIDE SIGNS OFF February 2, 2012 LUCAS VAN Praag was well-known for firing cerebral, elegantly worded scorn on anyone who crossed paths with Goldman Sachs. So the PR man’s exit from the bank, as confirmed yesterday, was similarly well-phrased. “C’est la vie,” emailed Goldman’s chief spokesman, the logical conclusion to the leak earlier this week that Jake Siewart, former aide to [...]
Doughty Hanson in deal for global oil and gas firm Asco November 27, 2011 THE private equity house best known for its investments in LK Bennett and Jimmy Choo has sold Asco, its oil and gas business. Phoenix Equity Partners sold the fast-growing oil and gas logistics firm, based in Aberdeen, to Doughty Hanson & Co, five years after paying £134m for it. The value of the latest sale [...]
Doughty Hanson in deal for global oil and gas firm Asco November 27, 2011 THE private equity house best known for its investments in LK Bennett and Jimmy Choo has sold Asco, its oil and gas business. Phoenix Equity Partners sold the fast-growing oil and gas logistics firm, based in Aberdeen, to Doughty Hanson & Co, five years after paying £134m for it. The value of the latest sale [...]
Give your finances a spring clean: A guide to tidying up all the mess April 1, 2012 SAVINGS Tom Stevenson, investment director, Fidelity WITH a new tax year approaching, the sun shining and a string of bank holidays ahead, spring is certainly in the air. Now is the perfect time for you to take control of your savings. The first step of any spring clean should be ensuring that your money is [...]
What’s in a name? Not a huge amount November 23, 2011 “THE ‘D’ and ‘M’ in our name might stand for ‘Daily Mail’, but we’re far from that.” So said Stephen Daintith, DMGT’s finance director, as he discussed the group’s full-year results with journalists yesterday. The message, loud and clear, was that this was no longer a newspaper company, but rather a company that happens to own [...]
MEGA-BRAND ADDS BANKING TO ITS WIDE RANGING INTERESTS November 17, 2011 VIRGIN MONEY With the purchase of 74 Northern Rock branches, the Virgin Money brand has just got a whole lot bigger. It already has a banking licence, having purchased Church House Trust, a tiny bank, in January 2010. It offers credit cards in conjunction with MBNA; mortgages in a joint venture with RBS-backed The One [...]
Wimpey says sales solid for autumn November 7, 2011 HOMEBUILDER Taylor Wimpey said trading in the busy autumn selling period had been stable and it is on track to meet margin targets. The UK’s second-largest volume housebuilder by market value said its current order book for future completions stood at 6,265 homes, against 5,496 homes at the same point last year. The group is [...]
CVC in a £4bn bid for RBS’s insurance arm October 30, 2011 PRIVATE equity house CVC Capital Partners is believed to have made a £4bn bid for the insurance arm of Royal Bank of Scotland. The bank was forced by the EU to begin a sale of RBS Insurance (RBSI), which trades as Direct Line and Churchill, after receiving a taxpayer bailout in 2008. CVC is believed [...]
SELL November 24, 2011 MANAGING DIRECTOR OF KAY & CO, CENTRAL LONDON ESTATE AGENCY Q.I’m about to put my house on the market – how long should I expect it to take me to sell my home? A.This is a tricky question to answer as time scales vary dramatically. However, on balance, in order to allow for a full [...]