RBS competition fine will solve nothing April 27, 2010 THE ROYAL Bank of Scotland was recently fined £28.6m by the Office of Fair Trading for breaking competition law after the bank shared information with Barclays. But the case raises a number of questions, not least about the regulator’s intentions in imposing the fine, and its efficacy in deterring such behaviour in future. Firstly there [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 7, 2010 Barclays Wealth. The wealth manager has appointed Aaron Gurwitz as chief investment officer and head of research, economics and strategy and Kevin Gardiner as head of global investment strategy. Gurwitz, pictured, joined the firm in 2008 as part of the Lehman Brothers acquisition, having previously worked for PIM and Goldman Sachs. Gardiner joined last year [...]
Bleak picture in UK markets as shares tumble on Eurozone and Korea fears May 25, 2010 BRITAIN’S leading shares tumbled yesterday, laid low by big falls from banks and commodity issues as ongoing euro zone debt contagion fears and rising tensions in Korea kept investors wary. By the close, the FTSE 100 index was down 128.93 points, or 2.5 per cent, at 4,940.68, having touched an eight-and-a-half month low of 4,898.49 [...]
BlackRock shares slide after its anaemic results April 26, 2010 BlackRock, the giant money management firm, reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings as its funds businesses saw outflows and customers shifted to passive funds over more actively-managed ones. The asset management firm’s shares were down as much as 8.8 per cent as investors focused on the weaker-than-expected earnings as well as weaker-than-forecast revenue numbers even as overall [...]
Japanese pharma firm will buy its way into lucrative US drugs market May 17, 2010 JAPANESE drugmaker Astellas Pharma has agreed to buy US biotech OSI Pharmaceuticals for $4bn (£2.8bn) in cash in a sweetened bid that will add OSI’s blockbuster cancer drug Tarceva to its line-up. Astellas has been chasing OSI as it seeks to bolster a nascent cancer drug business as a future earnings pillar amid falling earnings [...]
FTSE sunk by BP’s oil slick woes June 8, 2010 Britain’s FTSE 100 share index fell yesterday, led down by energy shares as BP dropped again on fresh Gulf of Mexico oil slick worries and banks which were hit by Eurozone debt concerns and the threat of punitive taxes. By the close the FTSE 100 was off 40.91 points, or 0.8 per cent at 5,028.15 [...]
RBS hit with £29m fine for price sharing March 30, 2010 Royal Bank of Scotland has been slapped with a £29m fine after being caught attempting to share loan prices with its biggest rival. The move backfired when Barclays staff shopped the RBS workers to the regulator. The Office of Fair Trading said RBS executives broke competition law by giving their counterparts at Barclays information on [...]
Bank lending weak from deleveraging May 26, 2010 MORTGAGE lending slumped in April to its lowest monthly level since February 2001 and the number of mortgage approvals only inched higher in what is typically a strong month for the housing market, fresh statistics from the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) showed yesterday. Banks’ net mortgage lending fell to £1.8bn in April compared with £2.3bn [...]
Northern Rock head is making a small fortune March 31, 2010 THE head of nationalised bank Northern Rock was paid an astounding £1.3m in 2009, despite the group recording a loss of £257m last year. Gary Hoffman’s basic £700,000 salary was boosted by pension payments and the second tranche of a 1.2m compensation package for incentives lost when he left Barclays in 2008, according to the [...]
Two-week low for the FTSE as metals and miners tumble June 23, 2010 BRITAIN’S top share index hit a near two-week closing low yesterday as retreating metals prices and downbeat broker sentiment pressured mining stocks and with investors’ moods darkened by weak US homes sales data. The FTSE 100 index closed down 68.46 points, or 1.3 per cent, at 5,178.52, its lowest close since 11 June, having lost [...]