Analyst Views: Do these results give Friends Life a reason to be cheerful? November 11, 2014 EAMONN FLANAGAN | SHORE CAPITAL We remain concerned over the impact on the business model following the Budget changes to annuities. The income attractions remain considerable but uncertainties over its positioning in the market are likely to act as an overhang to the stock performance, in our view. GORDON AITKEN | RBC CAPITAL MARKETS As the [...]
Analyst Views: How do things look for Henderson after the results? October 30, 2014 PETER LENARDOS | RBC While we acknowledge that investment performance was stronger than both we and consensus expected in quarter three, we maintain our conclusion and continue to believe that consensus forecasts should adjust downwards for current market conditions. DAVID MCCANN | NUMIS Overall we believe Henderson is approximately fairly valued. We still cannot see [...]
How a single comment cost Royal Bank of Canada millions of dollars in fees from Alibaba’s IPO October 29, 2014 One banker will be keeping his or her mouth shut for a while to come after, let’s say a slight snafu, ended up costing their employer millions of dollars. The loose-lipped, unnamed banker at Royal Bank of Canada apparently let slip a comment about Alibaba during a webinar. No biggie, surely – unless the bank [...]
Why RBC left Alibaba deal October 28, 2014 ROYAL Bank of Canada pulled out of and forfeited fees in the Alibaba initial public offering (IPO), after an employee commented on the deal during the quiet period before the world’s largest IPO, it said yesterday. “An employee unrelated to the Alibaba IPO process inadvertently made a comment about the transaction on an industry webinar [...]
Apax strikes deal to take Dutch software maker Exact private October 9, 2014 Private equity firm Apax took listed Dutch software group Exact private yesterday in a €730m (£574.6m) deal. Apax has agreed to pay €32 a share in cash through a subsidiary vehicle called Eiger Acquisition to take over the group, a 27 per cent premium to the group’s undisturbed share price before Apax’s interest was revealed back [...]
City Moves for 8 October 2014 | Who’s switching jobs October 7, 2014 Carmignac Group Obe Ejikeme has been appointed quantitative equity analyst in the asset manager’s fund management team. He was previously head of European equity and quantitative strategy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and has also worked at FactSet Research Systems. Old Mutual Global Investors The asset management firm has announced the appointment of Ian [...]
Balfour Beatty share price falls despite sale of Pinderfields and Pontefract Hospital stake October 2, 2014 Balfour Beatty’s £61.5m sale of its stake in Pinderfields and Pontefract Hospital will not be enough to buoy shareholder confidence following the firm’s profit warning on Monday, analysts have said. The company disposed of its 50 per cent interest in the public-private partnership (PPP) yesterday, selling to an HCIL subsidiary, and also announced three new [...]
Lloyds sells another £160m of TSB shares September 25, 2014 LLOYDS last night announced it would sell another 11.5 per cent of its shares in TSB, the spin-off bank it floated in June. The sale of an extra 57.5m shares will cut Lloyds’ holding in TSB to around 50.5 per cent. At last night’s closing price of 280p, the offering will net Lloyds £161m. Lloyds [...]
Euro slides to one-year low as ECB cuts rates to 0.05pc, but confirms stimulus programme September 4, 2014 The euro slid to 1.302 against the dollar, its lowest level since July 2013, after the European Central Bank cut interest rates from 0.15 per cent to 0.05 per cent and confirmed plans to start a programme of buying asset-backed securities. ECB president Mario Draghi hinted during a speech at Jackson Hole last month that the [...]
City Moves for 04 September 2014 | Who’s switching jobs September 3, 2014 Savills The real estate adviser has announced the appointment of Andrew D Thompson as a director in its London-based building and project consultancy team. He joins from his own independent practice, and has previously held roles at CBRE, Drivers Jonas, and Wilks Head & Eve. Aviva Investors David Lis has been appointed chief investment officer, [...]