Jessops eyes a snappy return to profit growth August 1, 2010 JESSOPS is eyeing a return to profitability after clawing its way back from the brink in the wake of the financial meltdown. The firm was rescued when its bank HSBC agreed to write off £34m of debt in return for 47 per cent of the company. Shareholders in the firm were all but wiped out [...]
Jessops eyes a snappy return to profit growth August 1, 2010 JESSOPS is eyeing a return to profitability after clawing its way back from the brink in the wake of the financial meltdown. The firm was rescued when its bank HSBC agreed to write off £34m of debt in return for 47 per cent of the company. Shareholders in the firm were all but wiped out [...]
PIMCO’S GROSS ISSUES WARNING OVER A BRAZEN PONZI SCHEME: QE October 27, 2010 PIMCO’S resident bond expert Bill Gross yesterday, in his usual verbose fashion, issued a stark warning over the upcoming second round of quantitative easing (QE) in the US – dubbing it no less than a “Ponzi scheme” on the part of the Federal Reserve. “Check [sic] writing in the trillions is not a bondholder’s friend; [...]
Three cheers for the stars of the Square Mile October 28, 2010 LAST night was truly an exciting and exceptional occasion: City A.M.’s inaugural awards celebrating the best and brightest of London’s business, financial and investment communities. Our inaugural awards ceremony saw more than 450 guests in their finery roll up at the Grange Hotel at St Pauls. Our winners, unique in that each was initially chosen [...]
Solid earnings are only the beginning for banking stocks August 2, 2010 AFTER what has been a difficult few months, the European banking sector couldn’t have asked for a better start to a week that is jam-packed with their first-half earnings announcements. Both London-listed HSBC and Paris-quoted BNP Paribas posted better than expected profits and revealed that their bad debts have fallen sharply to pre-crisis levels. Traders [...]
Koreans snap up French shopping mall August 17, 2010 SOUTH Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS) said yesterday it would buy a 51 per cent stake in a French shopping mall from Anglo-French property investor Hammerson for around 350bn won (£189m). The deal is the latest addition to NPS’s growing investments in overseas property assets which include a $767m (£493m) purchase of Sony Center in [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS September 7, 2010 Deloitte The accountancy firm has appointed UK partner Chris Harvey as the new head of its financial services group. Harvey has been a partner since 2002 and has been global head of banking and securities since 2008. He will focus on growing the financial services business in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern [...]
Treasury star to join JPM August 2, 2010 JP MORGAN Chase is today expected to announce Daniel Zelikow, a former US Treasury official, is to supervise a new drive to secure more commercial banking business for the group. Zelikow, who served under Robert Rubin in the Clinton administration, will look to win work from governments around the world and particularly in faster-growing economies. [...]
FTSE falls on weaker banks, despite advance made by BP September 30, 2010 BRITAIN’S FTSE 100 closed lower yesterday as weaker banks outweighed gains from energy stocks on stronger crude prices and comments suggesting BP could resume paying a dividend in 2011. The FTSE 100 closed 20.65 points, or 0.4 per cent lower at 5,548.62. It gained 6.2 per cent in September and 12.8 per cent in the [...]
HSBC strategists fly east to drive growth in Hong Kong January 31, 2010 HSBC has underlined its focus on the Chinese market by moving a team of around a dozen strategists to Hong Kong along with its global head of strategy, Antonio Simoes. Simoes will work closely with chief executive Michael Geoghegan, who received a hero’s welcome on his first day at the bank’s far eastern office last [...]