Diary January 30, 2011 LIQUIDITY INFUSIONS Famous for the harsh schedule inflicted upon its toiling delegates, this year’s party merry-go-round at Davos was no exception. Drinks and well-watered dinners kick off from 6pm, with the central Belvedere hotel boasting around a dozen venues for simultaneous drunken revelry. They then proceeded to a collection of “nightcaps” at 10pm, and usually end [...]
Diary January 26, 2011 DAVOS DIVAS Davos this year might have drawn headlines for its first ever quota for female delegates, but there’s one group of women the event has always catered for: the “Davos wives”. Anya Stiglitz, wife of the economist Dr Joseph Stiglitz (pictured together), has this year been spilling the beans in a series of blog [...]
Banker linked to WikiLeaks goes on trial January 19, 2011 Former Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer has started his trial for breaching bank secrecy, admitting he sent private client data to tax authorities but denying blackmail and a bomb threat against Bank Julius Baer. Elmer, 55, among the first to use WikiLeaks to publish private bank documents, said he took his information to the website after [...]
Wikileaks to out alleged tax dodging companies January 17, 2011 THE WHISTLEBLOWER at the centre of a fresh Wikileaks scandal will today appear in a Zurich court charged with violating Swiss banking law. Rudolf Elmer, a former executive at Julius Baer, one of Switzerland’s top private banks, yesterday handed over a CD listing the details of 2,000 allegedly tax dodging individuals and firms to Wikileaks [...]
Insurers agree to stop sharing prices January 13, 2011 SEVEN insurance groups including Aviva and Axa Insurance UK agreed to stop sharing motor policy pricing data using an Experian tool after the UK regulator said it could limit competition. The tool, Whatif? Private Motor, allowed insurers to access the pricing information supplied by competitors to brokers, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said in [...]
World Forum: Economies face big risks January 12, 2011 WORLD governments have been drained of resources after the financial crisis and are poorly-equipped to handle 21st-century global risks, a new study reported yesterday. Governments are less able to tackle emerging global risks such as shortages of natural resources, an ageing world population and fragile states dominated by illegal activity. But the macroeconomic trends that [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS January 5, 2011 Prudential The insurance giant has announced the appointment of Peter Goerke as group human resources director, with effect from the start of March. He will be a member of the executive committee and succeeds Priscilla Vacassin in the job. Goerke comes to the company from Zurich Financial Services Group, where he has worked since 2005 [...]
The broker who says small firms have to come up with big solutions January 3, 2011 The conventional wisdom is that it is next to impossible for small firms to raise cash, but Phil Adams, chief executive at independent investment broker Altium, says that the picture is more complicated than that. “It is pretty straightforward to raise cash if you are a well-run high-growth firm expanding by around 15 per cent [...]
The broker who says small firms have to come up with big solutions January 3, 2011 The conventional wisdom is that it is next to impossible for small firms to raise cash, but Phil Adams, chief executive at independent investment broker Altium, says that the picture is more complicated than that. “It is pretty straightforward to raise cash if you are a well-run high-growth firm expanding by around 15 per cent [...]
Four of the best resorts for a wild and wicked break January 3, 2011 BEST FOR CRAZY PEOPLE REVELSTOKE, CANADA WANT to go somewhere genuinely new and yet nonetheless outrageously awesome? Try Revelstoke. Deep in the Canadian Selkirks, this remarkable resort only opened in Winter 2007. It is still, partially, a work in progress, but when it’s complete, it will be North America’s largest ski area, with a colossal [...]