Swiss capital rules will prove final straw November 1, 2011 FOR all the furore over the rogue trading scandal at UBS, it is Switzerland’s notoriously strict capital requirements – not allegedly unauthorised trades – that is most hurting the country’s banks. That’s why the strategy unveiled by Credit Suisse boss Brady Dougan yesterday differs little from the one being pursued by UBS. The case of [...]
House prices rise but market remains weak November 1, 2011 House prices rose in October but have fallen slightly over the past three months as difficult economic conditions kept the market under pressure, Nationwide has said. The building society’s house price index showed prices gained 0.4 per cent in the past month – the strongest monthly gain since February, and higher than September’s 0.1 per [...]
Effect of rogue trading scandal on wealth management still not clear October 25, 2011 THE IMPACT of the rogue trading scandal on UBS’s investment bank was laid bare in its third quarter results. The unit fell to a loss of SwFr2.4bn once you strip out the gains it made on the declining value of its own credit, in large part due to the SwFr1.8bn lost through unauthorised trades. The [...]
Effect of rogue trading scandal on wealth management still not clear October 25, 2011 THE IMPACT of the rogue trading scandal on UBS’s investment bank was laid bare in its third quarter results. The unit fell to a loss of SwFr2.4bn once you strip out the gains it made on the declining value of its own credit, in large part due to the SwFr1.8bn lost through unauthorised trades. The [...]
BUSINESS HONOURS FOR INDIAN TYCOONS October 20, 2011 THERE was a reason Boris Johnson couldn’t attend the launch of Sonia Purnell’s Just Boris biography on Tuesday night. The London mayor was otherwise engaged presenting KP Singh, the chairman of India’s largest real estate developer DLF, with the entrepreneur of the year award at the Asian Awards. Singh, the Forbes billionaire who has made [...]
Buckles has some convincing to do October 17, 2011 OUCH. After it announced its “transformational” £5.2bn bid for ISS yesterday, shares in G4S lost almost a quarter of their value. Having pulled plans for a flotation due to lack of demand, the private equity backers of ISS have now successfully shopped the business to G4S. But the thinking among some shareholders is this: if [...]
The printing press is whirring again: What does it mean for spread betters October 9, 2011 KATHLEEN BROOKS | FOREX.COM THE major surprise from last week was not only that the Bank of England would pump another £75bn into the UK economy, but also the resilience of the pound. Sterling rallied against all of the major currencies last week and reversed its initial decline immediately after the announcement. So is the [...]
The Malaysian chateau where bodysculpting gets serious October 9, 2011 ON ARRIVAL in my spa suite at Malaysia’s new all-organic destination spa, I was pleasantly surprised to find a note on the pillow reading: “Chocolate is an elixir of life. Scientists from Harvard University say that eating a couple of chocolate bars a week could extend your life by almost a year.” By day two, [...]
A Prime Minister on auto-cue blind to the big picture October 5, 2011 THE joke doing the rounds in the Manchester conference hall yesterday was this: is David Cameron following Plan C or Plan D? The wags weren’t referring to the government’s deficit reduction strategy, but rather the fact that the Prime Minister was forced to rewrite his speech after early extracts, released to the press on Tuesday [...]
Hedgie fee model is not fit for such volatile times September 28, 2011 THE reaction to yesterday’s Man Group statement was a tad overdone. Prior to the announcement, its market cap was £5.7bn, roughly eight per cent of its £71bn of assets under management (last stated at the end of June). Following the revelation that assets under management had fallen to £65bn, its market cap plunged to £4.5bn, [...]