Sterling surges on growth hopes August 2, 2010 STERLING surged to a six-month high of $1.59 against the dollar in London yesterday, a rise of 2.36 cents, as investors bet growth in the UK would outpace that in the US which many economists fear is only months from slipping back into recession. The pound, which also climbed to its strongest in nearly a [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS September 5, 2010 Hermes Fund Managers The fund management group has appointed Chris Taylor as chief executive of its real estate investment management business. Taylor joins from Australian fund manager QIC, where he has been head of European property for the past four years. Prior to that, he was at HSBC Specialist Investments as head of European property, [...]
PERSONAL FINANCE NEWS August 5, 2010 MS LAUNCHES NEW GROWTH PLAN Morgan Stanley this week announced the launch of its FTSE Gilt-Backed Growth Plan 4, which offers investors a fixed return equivalent to 8.5 per cent a year, paid on the first anniversary that the FTSE records flat or positive performance. If this does not happen, then investors still have some [...]
Santander to be grilled by Commission September 22, 2010 SPAIN’S Santander will join the UK’s largest banks in facing individual grillings by the government’s independent banking commission when the private phase of the review gets under way next year. The commission’s official consultation launches tomorrow when ex-OFT boss Sir John Vickers, the chairman, publishes an initial “issues paper” setting out its agenda. The two [...]
THE TIPSTER August 2, 2010 HIGH street retail giant Next releases its latest trading statement tomorrow and the statement should give some insight into whether the company feels that the man on the street is more optimistic than he was six months ago or if concern about government cuts is still curbing our spending at the tills. Next had a [...]
Bradford & Bingley back in the black July 30, 2010 Bradford & Bingley, the mortgage lender which was nationalised after running into problems during the credit crisis, said on Friday it had swung to a first-half profit after making a loss a year earlier. The bank reported a pretax profit of £896m for the six months ending June 30, having made a loss of £160m [...]
Pace secures loans to snap up 2Wire September 1, 2010 PACE, the world’s largest set-top box maker, has agreed loans of $450m (£291.1m) to fund its acquisition of US broadband technology firm 2Wire. A $300m term loan and $150m of revolving credit were underwritten by HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland. An existing £35m credit line with RBS was cancelled. The acquisition, which Pace hopes [...]
Home-builders ramp up incentives to lure hard-up first-time buyers December 2, 2010 HOME-BUILDERS have always offered buyers deals, but some are more valuable than others. Take, for example, the West Bromwich Building Society’s offer in 2004 of a free Rover car worth over £7,000 – a year before the car-maker went into administration. The downturn has left house-builders with new-builds sitting empty all over the country, and [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 29, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES LI KA-SHING PAYS £5.8BN FOR UK UTILITY EDF of France is set to sell its UK electricity networks business to Cheung Kong Infrastructure of Hong Kong for £5.8bn, 45 per cent more than the price originally suggested for the deal, according to a person close to the negotiations. The state-controlled French electricity group [...]
Bankers: further pay curbs will cripple the City August 8, 2010 BANKERS are warning politicians and regulators they risk an exodus of talent from London if they put further curbs on pay in response to rising bonus levels. New ONS figures show financial sector bonuses in the five-month period between December and April in the last financial year were £10bn, up from £8bn in 2008. The [...]