Lots of platitudes but little red meat May 11, 2011 WITH around £1.5 trillion of assets on its balance sheet, HSBC is practically the size of a country. Perhaps that’s why most of the ideas unveiled at yesterday’s hotly-anticipated “strategy day” seem to have been stolen from a Whitehall efficiency review. First there was the £100m saving that will come from a “reduction of paperwork”. [...]
Tube walkouts called off May 10, 2011 A RUN of crippling Tube strikes due to start next Monday have been called off following secret talks between Transport for London boss Mike Brown and union officials. He told RMT Union leader Bob Crow that a driver at the centre of the dispute would be re-instated in order to avoid “significant disruption for London”. [...]
Tube walkouts called off May 10, 2011 A RUN of crippling Tube strikes due to start next Monday have been called off following secret talks between Transport for London boss Mike Brown and union officials. He told RMT Union leader Bob Crow that a driver at the centre of the dispute would be re-instated in order to avoid “significant disruption for London”. [...]
Spending this much on a telco is absurd May 10, 2011 MICROSOFT is splashing the cash again in its war with Google, a war of attrition it is losing badly. No-one denies that the software giant needs to use the $50bn it has sitting in cash and short-term investments to buy new companies. Whether Skype is the right buy at $8.5bn all comes down to whether [...]
Tube strike called off May 10, 2011 The two-week Tube drivers’ strike due to start next Monday was called off after a deal was struck through secret negotiations. Transport for London chief Mike Brown held talks with the RMT union and told leader Bob Crow that a driver at the centre of the dispute will be re-employed. Brown said the deal had [...]
Hammond slams strikes May 5, 2011 Transport secretary Philip Hammond has branded the latest round of Tube strikes “highly irresponsible” and said the union’s behaviour will lead to tougher industrial laws. The RMT union, headed up by Bob Crow, has announced six strike days. They will down tools for between nine and 24 hours between 16 and 20 May and again [...]
CITY VIEWS: SHOULD THERE BE A CHANGE IN THE LAW TO STOP TUBE STRIKES? May 5, 2011 MICHAEL ALBONE | VTB CAPITAL “Yes. I find it a bit annoying when they go on strike. It causes a lot of hassle for people. Bob Crow is not exactly a popular figure and the strikes are not worth what they are arguing for.” MARK BROWN | HIGH FINANCE GROUP “Yes. Every time they strike [...]
Japan PLC can learn from hacker scandal May 4, 2011 ON holiday in Japan last year, I was struggling to find a restaurant in the tangled nexus of Tokyo’s backstreets. Eventually, I asked a local for directions. He assured me that he knew where the restaurant was, setting off with a confident stride. After twenty minutes or so, he said he couldn’t quite remember where [...]
Money supply and credit conditions remain tight May 4, 2011 CONSUMER credit, excluding mortgages, rose by just £100m in March, considerably below economists’ expectations, the Bank of England said yesterday, And the Bank’s preferred gauge of money supply, M4 excluding intermediate other financial corporations rose by 0.1 per cent on the month — down 1.1 per cent on the same time last year. “Today’s money [...]
WHAT THE US PAPERS SAID YESTERDAY May 3, 2011 DAILY NEWS The White House crowed that the brave SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden “decapitated the head of the snake known as Al-Qaeda.” CHICAGO SUN-TIMES Osama bin Laden, the face of global terrorism and architect of the September 11 attacks, was killed in a firefight with elite US forces. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL [...]