Alistair Darling is being unfair to Lloyds October 13, 2009 ONCE again, the government has got it completely wrong on Lloyds Banking Group. Chancellor Alistair Darling should be happy that the bank is trying to raise private funding to remove itself from the asset protection scheme, a flawed contraption which never really made any sense. Instead, however, the Treasury is turning the screws on the [...]
BOULTON, CAMPBELL IN BUST UP OF THE YEAR May 10, 2010 IF ANY readers were holed up behind a desk yesterday evening without access to a television, it’s time to indulge yourselves with a quick internet search, pronto. Yesterday’s Sky News coverage of Gordon Brown’s resignation as Prime Minister contained one of the best live TV snippets in years, as the channel’s political editor Adam Boulton [...]
Pitman to take Virgin money chair January 26, 2010 FORMER Lloyds TSB chairman Sir Brian Pitman is expected to be named chairman of Virgin Money as early as today. Pitman, 78, will join chief executive Jayne-Anne Gadhia in planning Virgin’s assault on high street banking. He won widespread respect for his 18-year tenure at Lloyds and will be a heavyweight addition to the team.
Blacks closes 90 stores and axes 50 staff September 30, 2009 OUTDOOR goods retailer Blacks Leisure plans to close 89 loss-making stores and axe about 50 head-office jobs, it said yesterday, as part of a recovery plan it hopes will win the support of its banks. The firm, which has over 400 stores including the Blacks Outdoor and Millets chains, said the job losses represented about [...]
Pressure still on for BA, despite the Iberia deal November 16, 2009 BRITISH AIRWAYS’ agreement to a $7bn merger with its Spanish rival Iberia has highlighted just how much the airlines have struggled during the recession. A surging oil price ahead of the financial crisis had put pressure on costs, which saw both businesses and consumers tighten their belts, causing passenger numbers to slump. The merger, said [...]
CITY SPORT AWARDS TO GET LEASE OF NEW LIFE November 23, 2009 SPORT fanatics in the City could be forgiven for wondering when their favourite event of the year is due to come around, now that the party season has entered full swing. But I hear the ICAP Square Mile Sport Awards – which last year saw sporting stars such as cricketer Darren Gough, swimmer Mark Foster, [...]
TOP FIVE BANKS SIGN UP TO BONUS ACCORD September 30, 2009 THE UK’s “big five” banks have committed to rules on pay agreed at the recent G20 summit in Pittsburgh, the Treasury announced yesterday. State-backed Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, as well as HSBC, Barclays and Standard Chartered, issued a joint statement saying that they would “work with the FSA (Financial Services Authority) [...]
LLOYDS’ TOXIC DEBT PLAN HIT September 17, 2009 LLOYDS Banking Group’s hopes of avoiding participation in the government’s Asset Protection Scheme (APS) were dashed yesterday, as the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said the bank did not have sufficient capital to spurn the facility. FSA officials, who have been stress testing the bank, have told Lloyds that the level of capital it would have [...]
Barclays eyes Standard Life Bank division September 28, 2009 BARCLAYS is eyeing a bid for the banking operations of insurance titan Standard Life, sources close to the situation said yesterday. The insurer is understood to have put its Standard Life Bank unit up for sale at a price of between £200m and £300m and people familiar with Barclays’ plans said that the business would [...]
CITY A.M. | SHADOW MPC March 3, 2010 ALLISTER HEATH | CITY A.M. “The Bank should keep interest rates on hold and make no further changes to quantitative easing [QE]. The economy is growing again – the services sector PMI data was especially encouraging yesterday.” SIMON WARD | HENDERSON “Raise 25 basis points. The recovery is gaining momentum and emergency policy is no [...]