WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING June 29, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES BT’S PENSION SCHEME TO HOLD LESS IN EQUITIESThe BT Group Pension Scheme had only enough money at the end of 2008 to pay about 57 per cent of promised benefits if the telecommunications company were to become insolvent, and said it intended to pare back sharply its future investments in equities in the [...]
HEATHROW TOP DOGS READY FOR A GRILLING August 18, 2009 YESTERDAY marked the first working day at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 for philosopher Alain de Botton, who’s spending a week as “writer-in-residence” at the airport while scouting for fuel for a new book. The tome, “A Week At The Airport: A Heathrow Diary”, is due to be published in September and will feature conversations with passengers, [...]
FTSE gains on broad-based rally led by banks and miners July 20, 2009 A BROAD-BASED rally in the stock market saw Britain’s top share index recording gains for a sixth straight day, with banks leading the surge and commodity shares jumping on stronger crude oil and metal prices. The FTSE 100 index ended 54.87 points, or 1.3 per cent, higher at 4,443.62 — the highest close since 11 [...]
Managing a strategy for career change August 12, 2009 IT’S HARDLY unusual for people in their late twenties to decide that the area they’re working in isn’t actually the career they want to pursue. Tristan Smith had been working successfully in the airline industry for eight years – even moving from her home town of Sydney, Australia to the US city of Chicago – [...]
Falls in mining and energy halt FTSE’s winning streak July 28, 2009 THE FTSE 100’s two-week winning streak finally came to an end yesterday, with the benchmark index closing 1.3 per cent down on the day. The blue chip index had looked set to put in another consecutive day’s gain in earlier trading, but profit taking in mining and energy stocks dragged it lower. The FTSE 100 [...]
COLOURFUL WORLD OF CHRISTINA DOMECQ August 11, 2009 EVERYONE wants a piece of colourful entrepreneur Christina Domecq. Since her SpinVox voicemail-to-text conversion company appeared in 2003, Domecq has run the full gauntlet of whimsical public opinion – first championed by venture capitalists, then hounded by critics, and now slated by past and current employees. Don’t get me wrong, Domecq still has plenty of [...]
Banks launch overdraft bid in the Lords June 23, 2009 A LEGAL case to determine whether banking overdraft fees can be challenged on grounds of fairness kicked off in the House of Lords yesterday, with seven banks and one building society fighting to overturn an earlier ruling against them. The lenders are contesting a judgement by the Court of Appeal that charges imposed by the [...]
Ponzi victims left penniless June 29, 2009 JUDGE Denny Chin yesterday said that Bernard Madoff deserved the maximum sentence, typically handed down to organized crime bosses, saying that the fraud was “staggering”. Investigators will not know for some time where all the billions went, or how much was actually stolen, though they believe that some cash may be hidden in offshore tax [...]
Saad credit lines shut down June 11, 2009 FEARS were growing yesterday that Saad Group’s holdings in a raft of companies could be sold-off, as western banks began to shut down credit lines to the company and its billionaire chairman, Maan al-Sanea. Concerns escalated after the central bank in the United Arab Emirates instructed local banks to suspend lending to the troubled Saudi [...]
Hypocrisy at the heart of banking policy July 27, 2009 PATHETIC. That is the only way to describe Alistair Darling’s ridiculous, stage-managed, utterly fake “row” with Britain’s top banks yesterday. It is the mark of a desperate, dying government that it feels obliged to resort to such a ridiculous piece of make-believe, rather than engaging in proper policy-making. To demand of the banks that they [...]