MUSIC STARS BID FAREWELL TO UNIVERSAL BOSS LUCIAN GRAINGE June 16, 2010 A rapturous reception on Tuesday evening for Lucian Grainge, the current head of Universal Music’s international division, who is moving to New York next month to become chief executive of the group as a whole. Grainge, on crutches owing to a recent leg injury, stood near the stage area in a room at the Knightsbridge [...]
Hedgies off hook for now March 16, 2010 THERE was a last-minute reprieve for the hedge fund industry yesterday, after Gordon Brown personally intervened to delay a pan-European deal on tighter regulation. Sources close to the negotiations said Brown telephoned Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero on Monday night, to inform him that Britain could not back the Alternative Investment Fund Manager [...]
J Sainsbury set to ramp up banking arm by luring customers in with points October 11, 2009 J Sainsbury, Britain’s third biggest supermarket, is ramping up its banking arm, by launching a new scheme that will see shoppers rewarded for buying its financial services products. Sainsbury’s Finance will allow customers to earn double Nectar points for taking out home insurance, or opening an account, but it will also give Sainsbury’s account holders [...]
SMEs will save the UK… but my kids are all learning Spanish just in case July 12, 2010 WOL KOLADE, managing partner at Isis, is worried. The future of private equity – and the UK economy as a whole – is at a turning point, he says, and he’s not sure which way things will go. And when Kolade worries, people should listen – he knows what he is talking about. He joined [...]
SMEs will save the UK… but my kids are all learning Spanish just in case July 12, 2010 WOL KOLADE, managing partner at Isis, is worried. The future of private equity – and the UK economy as a whole – is at a turning point, he says, and he’s not sure which way things will go. And when Kolade worries, people should listen – he knows what he is talking about. He joined [...]
WHAT DOES THE CHANCELLOR’S BUDGET MEAN FOR YOU? March 24, 2010 KATE SOLWAY, 30 FUNDS CONTROLLER AT PRIVATE EQUITY FIRM COGNETAS Kate is single and lives in rented accommodation with flatmates. She also owns two investment properties – one a London flat with a mortgage which she rents out, and the other a holiday home under construction in Cape Verde, which she owns outright and will [...]
Tories hit out over allowances March 24, 2010 THE Tories yesterday accused the government of hiding a £2.2bn stealth tax in the small print of the Budget. The chancellor introduced a freeze on all income tax bands in his Budget instead of following normal practice and raising them in line with inflation. With retail inflation at 3.7 per cent, the tax-free personal allowance [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING May 18, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES BC PARTNERS WINS MORE TIME Investors in BC Partners have granted the UK-based private equity group an extension to the investment period on its latest fund, in a sign that buy-out groups are winning more time to deploy their $500bn of unspent capital. The extension of BC Partners’s investment period from November until [...]
What to look out for in the Budget June 21, 2010 THE ECONOMY/PUBLIC FINANCES • The newly-created interim Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) released forecasts last week for growth and public borrowing. But these were based on the policy decisions of Alistair Darling’s Budget and are likely to change in response to moves made by the new chancellor. • Previously, the OBR said GDP?growth is expected [...]
Take control of your pension plan and enjoy your old age April 8, 2010 IT IS estimated that only one in three adults under 30 are putting any money at all into a pension scheme. And little wonder when young people’s primary concerns are paying off debts accumulated in student years, saving up for those 40 per cent mortgage deposits and, truth be told, enjoying life. Retirement seems far [...]