Taxpayers to make £19bn from bailout August 4, 2010 TAXPAYERS stand to make a profit of £19bn if the government’s stakes in Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland are wound down over the next five years, according to an independent consultancy. The Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) made its prediction as the state’s exposure to Lloyds moved into the black [...]
Syrian mulls £400m bid for Liverpool August 1, 2010 A FORMER Syrian international footballer has become the latest businessman to be linked with a bid for Liverpool Football Club. Yahya Kirdi, who claims to be fronting a consortium of wealthy Arab investors, is understood to be in talks with the club’s much-maligned American owners. There was speculation earlier this year that Kirdi, who is [...]
Coalition told to save banks June 29, 2010 BREAKING up banks such as HSBC would be “an act of vandalism” which would profoundly damage Britain’s standing as an international financial hub, an influential industry magazine warns today. Institutions with strong overseas operations would move abroad, while those who remained would be severely weakened, according to The Banker. The journal, which published its index [...]
RBS recoups a $100m payout July 15, 2010 ROYAL BANK of Scotland (RBS) is set to receive a $100m (£64m) payout from Goldman Sachs as part of the US bank’s settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over fraud allegations. The UK bank, which is led by chief executive Stephen Hester, is thought to have been the largest victim of the alleged [...]
Royal Bank of Scotland wins EU support for restructuring December 14, 2009 THE EUROPEAN Commission approved a restructuring and impaired asset relief scheme for Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland yesterday, saying the measures fell within state aid rules. The Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said RBS’s restructuring proposals should create a sustainable future for the bank, one of Europe’s largest financial services groups, which [...]
Property tycoons the Reuben brothers raise stake in Arena July 19, 2010 Billionaire property investors David and Simon Reuben have raised their stake in Arena Leisure to a level just shy of the 30 per cent that would trigger a takeover bid for the British horsetrack operator. The operator of seven UK courses, including Doncaster, Royal Windsor and Wolverhampton, said in a regulatory filing yesterday that the [...]
RBS instructs Lazard to aid with £3bn real estate debt sell off July 6, 2010 ROYAL Bank of Scotland (RBS) is gearing up to sell off £3bn of real estate loans made during the property boom, reports said yesterday. The move, according to a story in the Financial Times, is the largest property disposal from its non-core banking business to date and is part of a five-year project to shed [...]
Coutts: One needs £250k to qualify for free account July 7, 2010 THE Queen’s bank Coutts has withdrawn free banking to customers with less than £250,000 in their accounts. The private bank, which is majority-owned by the taxpayer after the government bailed out its owner, the Royal Bank of Scotland, used to offer free banking to anyone who kept at least £10,000 in their current account. But [...]
Coutts: One needs £250k to qualify for free account July 7, 2010 THE Queen’s bank Coutts has withdrawn free banking to customers with less than £250,000 in their accounts. The private bank, which is majority-owned by the taxpayer after the government bailed out its owner, the Royal Bank of Scotland, used to offer free banking to anyone who kept at least £10,000 in their current account. But [...]
HSBC profits soar as loan losses halve August 2, 2010 FALLING toxic loan charges, booming growth in Asia, and the second best ever performance by HSBC’s investment banking division have lifted the bank’s profits more than twofold since the first half of 2009. HSBC smashed expectations yesterday with a 121 per cent rise in first-half pre-tax profit to $11.1bn (£6.98bn), comfortably above forecasts of a [...]