Co-op investor pleas rejected by watchdog July 18, 2013 RETAIL investors who face losing money in the troubled Co-op Bank are not set to get any relief from the authorities, Britain’s top regulator said yesterday. Bondholders have complained they were misled by the bank and the regulators into thinking their investments in bonds were safe, only to find their money under threat. But Financial [...]
Retail investment advice rules could be in for another shakeup July 18, 2013 NEW RULES for financial advisers may have given rise to incentives to push clients into investing as much as possible, even when it is not in their best interests, watchdog head Martin Wheatley said yesterday. The Retail Distribution Review (RDR) was designed to remove varying commissions from different products to stop advisers recommending certain investments on the [...]
Northern Rock’s bad bank selling assets to JC Flowers July 18, 2013 PRIVATE equity group JC Flowers is set to buy a portfolio of £450m Northern Rock loans from the bad bank part of the lender. UK Asset Resolution (UKAR) is expected to sell the loans to One Savings Bank, owned by JC Flowers, for around £300m. UKAR exists to wind down the bad loans built up [...]
Blackstone’s profits treble July 18, 2013 BLACKSTONE, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, said yesterday is second-quarter earnings more than tripled as the value of its funds rose and it cashed out on parts of its portfolio, including SeaWorld. Blackstone, whose investments include The Weather Channel, Hilton Worldwide and Pinnacle Foods, reported economic net income of $703m, up from $212m a [...]
Dell goes down to the wire as vote is delayed July 18, 2013 DELL has posponed a shareholder vote on its chief executive’s $24.4bn buyout offer until next Wednesday, after failing to get enough support to seal the deal, despite winning over several large investors at the eleventh hour. The adjournment of the meeting – called yesterday, minutes after shareholders gathered at Dell’s headquarters in Texas to decide [...]
Retail sales up on promotions drive from department stores July 18, 2013 BRITISH retail sales increased strongly in the second quarter of the year, the Office for National Statistics announced yesterday. Healthy June numbers show a 2.2 per cent rise in sales compared with the same month of 2012. And quarterly sales increased 0.9 per cent on the second quarter of last year. Online sales shot up 18.4 [...]
Business loans drop despite cheap funding July 18, 2013 BANK lending to British firms fell again in the three months to May, the Bank of England revealed yesterday. Net lending to all sizes of business dipped, bringing the total stock of loans down by £4.5bn in the quarter. That comes despite the Bank’s Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS), which is designed to offer cheap [...]
LSE shares soar as acquisition boosts revenues July 18, 2013 SHARES in the London Stock Exchange (LSE) topped the FTSE 100 yesterday, rising more than seven per cent after first-quarter revenues at the group beat expectations. Revenues in the three months to the end of June were £249.7m – 39 per cent higher than a year ago when they came in at £179m, and comfortably topping [...]
Inside track: When banks become unwelcome investors in property July 18, 2013 TWO INVESTMENT banks, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, will for the next few months be keeping a beadier eye than usual on the German property market. The pair have just emerged as holding a combined stake of around 13 per cent in Gagfah, the second-largest owner of German homes, as a consequence of not being [...]
Dexia bailout bill at €6.6bn July 18, 2013 THE RESCUE of nationalised Franco-Belgian bank Dexia has cost the French state around €6.6bn (£5.7bn) so far and the bill could grow, its public audit office said in a report yesterday. France and Belgium rescued Dexia, once the world’s largest municipal lender, last year over fears that a collapse of the crisis-hit banking group could [...]
