2014 City A.M. awards: Legal & General CEO Nigel Wilson is the insurance boss with big ideas November 13, 2014 The Legal & General chief exec, City A.M.’s Business Personality of the Year. His hero is Aneurin Bevan, the firebrand post-war Labour minister and architect of the NHS. His career was inspired by a quotation from political theorist Sir Isaiah Berlin on the importance of searching after the common good. And when I meet [...]
London office market recovery lifts Morgan Sindall’s order book August 4, 2014 Construction group Morgan Sindall said yesterday a pick-up in the London office market has helped to boost the value of its order book, despite reported a decline in first-half profits. The company, which builds houses, refurbishes offices and carries out redevelopment projects, said its forward order book rose by 14 per cent to £2.7bn in [...]
Don’t let politics delay extra airport capacity as it held back Crossrail November 18, 2013 DEEP underneath the docks at Canary Wharf, the largest construction project in Europe is underway – the new Crossrail line. With a spectacular station, when this new railway opens in 2019, it will whisk passengers to Heathrow in just 39 minutes. Canary Wharf Group was one of the driving forces behind getting the Crossrail project [...]
Battle of the City brokers as BGC makes hostile bid for rival GFI Group September 9, 2014 Interdealer broker BGC Partners yesterday gatecrashed the proposed takeover of rival GFI Group by swooping in with a hostile bid for the broking group. The interdealer broker, which was spun out of Cantor Fitzgerald in 2004, unveiled a $675m (£420m) offer which would create the world’s second largest interdealer broker behind leader The interdealer broker, [...]
Walkie Scorchie’s rays shaded October 24, 2013 AFTER blinding rays of light from the Walkie Talkie were held responsible for melting parts of a Jaguar and City A.M. journalist Jim Waterson managed to fry an egg in the glare created by the building (pictured) developers are trying out a new sun shade. The building is currently sporting a partial covering, aimed at [...]
Caliphate in the UK: From Hampshire to the city September 16, 2014 A few months ago, the word "caliphate" suddenly appeared in headlines in every newspaper, signalling the beginning of the sinister rise of Islamic State (IS), the group currently wreaking terror in the Middle East. But IS isn't the only caliphate – there are similar groups all over the world. Although it's safe to say the [...]
Canary Wharf’s Canadian backer October 28, 2013 CANARY WHARF was the biggest development in the world when work officially began in 1988. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher praised the level of foreign investment in the project – having personally arranged that Olympia & York, run by Paul Reichmann, would finance it. It had taken almost seven years to secure the commercial backer for [...]
The generous icon who built Canary Wharf October 28, 2013 THE MAN who transformed Canary Wharf from derelict dockland into a financial powerhouse died on Friday at the age of 83. Paul Reichmann, a Vienna-born Canadian, led the construction of east London’s iconic skyscrapers after a request from Margaret Thatcher to revive the site in 1987. He saw his family company, Olympia & York, fall [...]
Walkie Scorchie owner says ray is almost fixed November 12, 2013 LAND Securities’ chief executive said yesterday that the developer is close to fixing problems with the Walkie Talkie and that the skyscraper’s ultra-bright reflective rays had not put off potential tenants. The building, a joint venture with Canary Wharf Group, was dubbed the Walkie Scorchie after it began reflecting a beam of light this summer [...]
Legal & General’s Nigel Wilson sends slap in the face to Breedon as associates shudder – Inside Track August 13, 2014 Nigel Wilson has hardly put a foot wrong since replacing Tim Breedon, his po-faced predecessor, as chief executive of Legal & General just over two years ago. While investors are happy with the outspoken Geordie, however, his fellow insurance bosses are not – at least not after his latest bombshell dropped yesterday. Confirming [...]