More jobs go at Rok, says PwC November 16, 2010 THE ADMINISTRATORS for housing repair firm Rok made a further 1,800 people redundant yesterday, after it failed to find an interested buyer for large parts of the business. A total of 2,600 staff, around three quarters of Rok’s total staff, have now lost their jobs, with administrator PwC still in last-ditch talks with rivals to [...]
Q&A BIS FUNDING December 9, 2010 Q. Does the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) have programs that help entrepreneurs? What are they? A.BIS has several programs that can give extra funding to entrepreneurs. Chief among them are the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) and the Enterprise Capital Funds (ECF). EFGs are bank loans intended for small and medium sized enterprises [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS November 15, 2010 Barclays Barclays has appointed Paul McNamara (pictured) as MD of insurance and investments to strengthen the bank’s ability to make protection insurance more accessible. McNamara comes from Standard Life, where he was MD for group strategy and corporate finance, before which he was a director of marketing and distribution at HBOS financial services. In another [...]
Meet the CEO of the most important City firm you have never heard of October 24, 2010 As he saunters into his office in the City, Tim Howell, the chief executive of European settlement house Euroclear, looks cool and collected. He certainly doesn’t look like a man caught in the most classic of all business squeezes – with clients wanting him to improve his services while being adamant they should pay less [...]
A winning investment in Russia ETFs December 8, 2010 BARING Asset Managers were probably the only people in England to find an upside to Russia winning the bid to host the 2018 World Cup last week. They believe that the win offers us a better case for investing in the emerging giant. Indeed, the improved infrastructure and reputation that comes with hosting the Cup [...]
Taylor Wimpey begins £250m bond offering November 22, 2010 HOUSEBUILDER Taylor Wimpey rounded off its refinancing plan yesterday by announcing a new £100m debt facility and plans to sell £250m of five-year bonds. The news follows on from the firm’s £950m credit facility, which was announced last week as the last act by outgoing chief financial officer Chris Rickard. Prudential’s M&G UK Companies Financing [...]
Standard Chartered to expand non banking operations November 12, 2010 Standard Chartered will focus on organic growth and aims to expand non-banking operations in South Korea, its chief executive said. “You will see us doing more securities-based (work) using the holding company platform… In Korea as everywhere else, the primary focus of our strategy is organic growth,” Peter Sands told reporters in Seoul. The London-based [...]
WALL STREET TO KEEP ON CLIMBING POST-FED’S QE November 7, 2010 With the Fed confirming the latest round of quantitative easing and the Dow breaking above the April high of 11,258, this now becomes the first level of support for the index. WorldSpreads offer a two-point spread on the Dow Jones index. US crude oil was given a boost by the Fed decision and positive US [...]
French authorities fine 11 banks after price-fixing probe September 20, 2010 ELEVEN banks, including UK giant HSBC, were yesterday fined €384.9m (£323m) for colluding to fix the price they charge for handling cheques. The French competition authority found that the banks acted in concert to set interbank cheque fees on 80 per cent of cheques circulating in France between January 2002 and July 2007, during the [...]
French authorities fine 11 banks after price-fixing probe September 20, 2010 ELEVEN banks, including UK giant HSBC, were yesterday fined €384.9m (£323m) for colluding to fix the price they charge for handling cheques. The French competition authority found that the banks acted in concert to set interbank cheque fees on 80 per cent of cheques circulating in France between January 2002 and July 2007, during the [...]