Darling: Lend or we will cut bank bonuses March 24, 2010 THE government is threatening to slash bonuses at state-owned Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) if they miss their target of lending £94bn this year. Government papers published alongside chancellor Alistair Darling’s Budget said UK Financial Investments, which controls the taxpayer’s stake in the banks, had the power to “work with the [...]
The man to phone when you want to stake your bonus on the horses May 5, 2010 FANCY yourself as a high-roller? Frustrated that your high street betting shop is too scared to take your five-figure wagers? Do you relish rubbing your bookie’s face in it, verbally speaking, after taking him to the cleaners? Then meet Ben Keith. From his office on the Sussex coast Keith runs Star Sports, which he calls [...]
London and NY in tie for finance hub March 11, 2010 LONDON is no longer the world’s leading financial centre, according to a highly rated survey The Global Financial Centres report yesterday slashed its rating to equal that of New York. It is the first time London has been knocked off the top spot and will come as a warning to politicians desperate to trumpet the [...]
Good food under the arches April 26, 2010 Platform 56-58 Tooley Street, SE1 2SZ Tel: 020 7403 6388 platformse1.co.uk FOOD SERVICE ATMOSPHERE Cost per person without wine: £25 RECLAIMING still another part of London Bridge’s arches (in a former strip club) are restaurateur Tony McKinlay and his farmer friend, Barnaby Butterfield, with a “gate to plate” concept venue that’s part bar and part [...]
Majority of City lawyers support Tories May 4, 2010 HERE’S a thought: if our electorate comprised City lawyers – okay, maybe not that most appealing thought – the Tories would storm to an election win on Thursday. Legal Week magazine recently reckoned that almost two thirds of City partners (63 per cent) were backing Cameron. A survey by DLA Piper of 545 senior UK [...]
Rothschild names its first non-relative as chief exec February 10, 2010 BANKING group Rothschild has set its face to the future by confirming it will appoint a non-family member, Nigel Higgins, as chief executive for the first time. Having spent 27 years with the bank, Higgins has considerable pedigree. But in March he will become the only person in the finance house’s 212-year history to take [...]
Find a holiday idyll with no flying required April 20, 2010 IT’S finally started: deluges of volcano-friendly holidays. Yesterday our inboxes were indundated with ways to get round the awful ash cloud. Certainly, if your far-flung trip has been postponed, holidaying in Britain need not be a trial. The UK?is packed with idyllic places to stay, from the cosy and rustic and the majestic and palatial, [...]
FSA right to probe – but care needed March 31, 2010 FOR everybody’s sake, let us hope the Financial Services Authority knows what it is doing. Its massive insider trading raids have certainly shaken up the City – wherever one goes in the Square Mile, in Canary Wharf and in Mayfair, people are talking about the probe. This was exactly what the FSA wanted to achieve: [...]
Brussels rule jeopardises South African gains March 14, 2010 WE BRITS suffer from a sort of “oscillating Channel syndrome” when it comes to our place in the community of northern (and now wider) Europe. In our isolationist moods we see those 34 sea kilometres to Calais as a handy barrier. But as pragmatic traders we have known for millennia that the Continent’s shallow sea [...]
Cable: carve up retail and investment banking in UK January 25, 2010 VINCE cable yesterday called for British banks to be broken up, in a move that will further alienate him from the City. He said he would use the crisis to transform the economy into a system that was beneficial to the whole country and “not just the Square Mile”. He distanced himself from the two [...]