Lloyds in talks over £400m deal for retirement group Embark May 9, 2021 Lloyds Bank is in talks over a £400m deal to acquire retirement products provider Embark in what would be its biggest acquisition since it returned to private ownership four years ago. The lender is close to finalising a deal and an announcement could come as early as this month, Sky News reported. Embark, which was [...]
BoE does not expect wave of bankruptcies when Covid support measures end May 7, 2021 A tide of bankruptcies among UK firms is not expected when the government pulls its emergency Covid support measures like the furlough scheme later this year, BoE Chief Economist Andy Haldane has said. Many debts racked up recently by companies are spread over long durations “which increases the chances of them being able to be [...]
Activist investor sells stake in Barclays May 7, 2021 Activist investor Edward Bramson has sold his firm’s 6 per cent stake in Barclays, ending a three-year campaign against the bank. Since 2018, Bramson’s fund, Sherborne Investors, pressured Barclays CEO Jes Staley to scale back investment banking, and demanded his removal over his links to US financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but Bramson struggled [...]
FCA fines London boutique investment bank for failing to spot financial crime relating to cum-ex trading May 6, 2021 The City regulator has fined Sapien Capital £178,000 after it failed to carry out proper due diligence on a client likely participating in financial crime. Between 10 February and 10 November 2015, the boutique investment bank failed to have in place proper systems to find and mitigate the risk of being used to facilitate [...]
City Moves: Who’s switching jobs in the Square Mile this week? May 5, 2021 City A.M.‘s Millie Turner provides a roundup of the most important hires and job moves across the City, every Wednesday afternoon. Email citymoves@cityam.com to be featured. OneBanks hires ex–Lloyds chief as its first CTO Shared branch banking venture OneBanks has appointed a former Lloyds Bank executive as its first chief technology officer (CTO) this week. Andy Willmot, once [...]
Treasury minister trumpets City of London resilience post-Brexit May 4, 2021 City minister John Glen has trumpeted the City of London’s ability to adapt post-Brexit, saying there has only been a “modest” amount of jobs lost since the 2016 referendum. Glen said a great number of “journalists and academics” had been proved wrong about the expected mass movement of jobs from the City to other European [...]
Goldman Sach’s London employees to return to the office by 21 June May 4, 2021 Goldman Sachs employees in the UK will return to the office by 21 June, in line with the government’s easing of lockdown that should see the UK largely restriction-free. In an internal memo circulated among staff, and seen by City A.M., chief executive David Solomon said: “We know from experience that our culture of collaboration, [...]
UK banks provided over $50bn in financing for coal-exposed firms from 2018 to 2020 May 4, 2021 The UK’s biggest banks provided $56bn worth of financing for firms involved in the coal industry between 2018 and 2020, new research today has found. Of the top five banks exposed to the sector, Barclays provided by far the most financing to firms on the Global Coal Exit list, with $27bn. HSBC and Standard Chartered [...]
Mortgage lending rose to record £11.8bn in March after stamp duty extension May 4, 2021 UK mortgage lending saw the biggest net increase on record in March driven by extension of the stamp duty rax relief. Mortgage borrowing rose by a net £11.8bn in March, the strongest since the series began in April 1993, Bank of England figures show. The stamp duty holiday was originally due to end in March, [...]
Klarna to buck pandemic trend and take on more UK office space May 3, 2021 Klarna plans to take on more office space as part of a push to double its British workforce and launch more banking products. The buy now pay later firm will take new headquarters in an 11,000 sq ft WeWork office in Holborn and expand its existing space in Manchester. The firm is also looking at [...]