US drug firm Valeant’s share price has tanked after it slashed its outlook for the rest of the year and is courting a debt default if it misses the deadline for its annual report filling March 15, 2016 Shares in pharmaceutical firm Valeant have fallen by 50 per cent in New York, after it cut its revenue forecast for the year by 12 per cent. The big pharma firm also risks breaching covenant by delaying its annual report, posing a debt default risk. Valeant's share price has lost around 85 per cent since [...]
City Moves for 15 March 2016 | Who’s switching jobs March 15, 2016 JHC Systems JHC Systems, a provider of wealth management solutions, has announced the appointment of John Boggis as its new head of sales. John brings almost 20 years of financial industry experience to the role, having most recently held the position of head of sales for EMEA & APAC at Eagle Investment Systems, which is part [...]
Are senior bankers right that London would remain the leading centre for currency trading in the event of Brexit? March 15, 2016 Declan McEvoy, founder of Coalface Capital and a former investment banker, says Yes. While Brexit would potentially detrimentally affect fund management (mainly because of the EU passporting regime), the currency markets are an altogether different matter. London’s dominance is a function of several factors. First, its pole-position from a time-zone perspective – FX is a 24 [...]
Budget 2016 predictions: A spread of tax raising measures are coming – from raising capital gains tax to tackling salary sacrifice schemes March 14, 2016 Next week’s Budget looms large as experts are anticipating wide-ranging changes, with chancellor George Osborne tweaking tax to raise revenue and balance the books. Pensions were widely anticipated to be an area of huge upheaval, but Osborne has now delayed plans to fiddle with the system. It’s more likely that lots of niche areas are targeted. [...]
Leslie Thomas QC: Why the barrister who represented the family of Christi and Bobby Shepherd, who died while on a Thomas Cook holiday, thinks companies should stop relying on lawyers March 14, 2016 The legal profession may have gained an unfortunate reputation for bleeding clients dry in the name of billable hours, but Queen’s Counsel Leslie Thomas would much rather companies didn’t pour every penny into their legal representation when faced with a crisis. “It’s really important to see the whole picture and not just to focus on [...]
What designers can learn from the Trunki court battle after Magmatic lost its intellectual property appeal at the Supreme Court March 13, 2016 A few days ago we saw the final chapter in the long-running and high-profile dispute between the owner of the registered design of the “Trunki”, a ride-on suitcase for children, and the company selling a similar product called the “Kiddee Case” which had been inspired by the Trunki. In 2013, the UK High Court held [...]
Activist investor Worldview buys 69.44 per cent of Petroceltic’s debt March 10, 2016 Worldview has bought almost 70 per cent of London-listed, Dublin-based Petroceltic's debt, the company revealed today. Sunny Hill, which is wholly owned by the Worldview Economic Recovery Fund, has bought 69.44 per cent of the group's debt relating to its senior bank facility. Worldview said it had bought the debt "at a significant discount to face value". [...]
City Moves for 10 March 2016 | Who’s switching jobs March 10, 2016 Funding Circle Global small business online lender Funding Circle has announced that former executive board member of the European Central Bank (ECB) Jorg Asmussen will join the board. Jorg, a German economist and policymaker, has held numerous high-profile positions within the public sector. Prior to the ECB, between 2008 and 2012, he was state secretary at the [...]
Trunki-maker Magmatic loses intellectual property appeal case against PMS International and its Kiddee Case in the Supreme Court March 9, 2016 The Supreme Court has today dismissed an appeal by Trunki manufacturer Magmatic, which contended that a competitor product was breaching its intellectual property rights. Magmatic had previously registered a Community-registered design for its Trunki suitcases which covers various colours but not surface decoration. Magmatic argued in front of the Supreme Court in November that PMS International’s Kiddee Cases, [...]
Akhnaten by the ENO is a brilliantly inventive collision of art forms that hovers between the sublime and the ridiculous March 9, 2016 Royal Opera House | ★★★★☆ More high art burlesque than opera, this spectacular new production of Akhnaten hovers somewhere between the sublime and the ridiculous, and often it’s hard to tell where. There hasn’t been a full production in the UK for almost three decades and a heady sense of anticipation means that Akhnaten is already [...]