TORIES PLEDGE TO ABOLISH THE FSA July 19, 2009 A CONSERVATIVE government would abolish the “failed” tripartite system of financial regulation and hand chief responsibility for supervision back to the Bank of England, shadow chancellor George Osborne will confirm today. Osborne will outline plans to dismantle the regulatory architecture designed by Gordon Brown in today’s response to chancellor Alistair Darling’s white paper on financial [...]
British Land in Broadgate stake talks June 18, 2009 BRITISH Land, the UK’s second largest property company, is in talks with Israel’s Property and Building over selling a £100m stake in the City’s iconic Broadgate office complex, City A.M. can confirm. A British Land spokesman said last night: “The company declines to give further details about any of the parties but confirms that discussions [...]
West Brom in eleventh hour creditor deal June 11, 2009 WEST Bromwich Building Society has avoided collapse by convincing creditors to swap the money they lent it into equity-style holdings, enabling it to boost its depleted capital levels. The mutual asked creditors to let it swap £182.5m of subordinated debt into “a new instrument, which will qualify as tier one capital”. If the debt swap [...]
West Brom in eleventh hour creditor deal June 11, 2009 WEST Bromwich Building Society has avoided collapse by convincing creditors to swap the money they lent it into equity-style holdings, enabling it to boost its depleted capital levels. The mutual asked creditors to let it swap £182.5m of subordinated debt into “a new instrument, which will qualify as tier one capital”. If the debt swap [...]
Svanberg of Ericsson will be BP’s chair June 25, 2009 BP named Ericsson chief executive Carl-Henric Svanberg as its new chairman yesterday, in a surprise appointment which ended the British oil major’s lengthy search for a successor to Peter Sutherland. BP chief executive Tony Hayward said the firm would benefit from Swedish Svanberg’s experience in emerging markets and in dealing with governments. Svanberg, who will [...]
Milton Gate office block sold for 127m June 14, 2009 PRIVATE equity group Evans Randall has teamed up with Bahrain’s Al Salam Bank to buy the seven-storey Milton Gate office building in the City for £127m. The Moor Lane property, let to law firm Addleshaw Goddard, was put up for sale by UBS last year, but was taken off the market after the investment bank [...]
Milton Gate office block sold for 127m June 14, 2009 PRIVATE equity group Evans Randall has teamed up with Bahrain’s Al Salam Bank to buy the seven-storey Milton Gate office building in the City for £127m. The Moor Lane property, let to law firm Addleshaw Goddard, was put up for sale by UBS last year, but was taken off the market after the investment bank [...]
British stocks lead the way in defence aerospace boom June 21, 2009 IT was a bad few days for civil aerospace firms at the Paris Air Show last week. After the first four days, total orders and commitments for civil aircraft totalled $14.1bn. To put that in context, at Farnborough in 2008, total orders and commitments for Airbus and Boeing alone came to more than $64bn. The [...]
Adviser fees to be revised June 25, 2009 FINANCIAL advisers could be barred from charging commission on the products they sell, under proposals unveiled by the Financial Services Authority yesterday. The City watchdog, led by chief executive Hector Sants, said in its Retail Distribution Review (RDR) that financial advisers should charge customers an up-front fee, rather than taking commission from the companies whose [...]
Defence helps WS Atkins to report profits June 17, 2009 WS ATKINS, the engineering group, said yesterday its full year pre-tax profits had risen nine per cent to £100.2m, beating analysts expectations and sending its shares to their highest level in more than a month. The company – which is helping build the Olympics, construct Crossrail and upgrade the M25 – said its defence, oil [...]