What the other papers say this morning – 17 March 2014 March 17, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES Big banks put forex bonuses on hold Barclays, Citigroup and Royal Bank of Scotland have frozen bonuses across swaths of their foreign exchange trading teams pending internal investigations into possible manipulation of key currency benchmarks. The cash and share bonus suspensions are targeted on the wider team rather than just the traders under [...]
New HS2 boss calls for major changes to plan March 17, 2014 THE NEW head of the controversial High Speed 2 railway has today urged the government to speed up work on the route and build a new northern hub by 2027, six years earlier than the scheduled completion date. After several months reviewing the entire project, HS2 chairman Sir David Higgins has set out his proposals [...]
Jimmy Choo steps towards £1bn flotation as London markets fly March 17, 2014 THE OWNER of luxury shoe designer Jimmy Choo is mulling plans for a £1bn public listing in London to tap the capital’s booming stock market. Bankers are understood to have approached its owners, Labelux, to explore plans to find external capital for the firm’s aggressive expansion plans, with an offering of about 20 per cent [...]
Peoples’ Bank of China relaxes control of market for renminbi March 17, 2014 THE PEOPLE’S Bank of China (PBOC) will today loosen the tight grip it keeps on foreign exchange of the yuan, after announcing plans to widen the band in which the currency is traded. The central bank will now allow the Yuan to be traded within a two per cent corridor of the official rate it [...]
Richard Desmond mulls Channel 5 float March 17, 2014 MEDIA tycoon Richard Desmond is considering a flotation of Channel 5 as an alternative to selling the station. Bidders are offering up to £700m for the broadcaster, which Desmond bought for just over £100m in 2011. But according to Sky News, Desmond is also working with Goldman Sachs bankers on a potential listing. Desmond, who [...]
Balls says bank salaries are a ponzi scheme March 17, 2014 BANKERS are running a “Ponzi scheme” and in a rational world would do the same job for half their current salaries, shadow chancellor Ed Balls said yesterday, calling for the reintroduction of Labour’s bonus tax. His remarks came after the business secretary Vince Cable was quoted in the Observer yesterday saying “I don’t understand why [...]
Bottom Line: A far-from mobile company has to pay whatever the locals want March 17, 2014 OH YES, it’s back on again. A slightly higher price has secured this Spanish asset for Vodafone, handily expanding its offerings in the Iberian peninsula. The good news for Vodafone is that it has money to burn right now, after the sell-off of its cash cow stake in Verizon for £84bn. The bad news is, [...]
US to abandon control of key internet group March 17, 2014 THE US GOVERNMENT will give up its control over the internet’s infrastructure as it abandons ownership of the body responsible for web addresses. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – the body that maintains the master database for such top-level domain names as .com and .net, as well as the corresponding numeric [...]
Alibaba heading to New York for market debut March 17, 2014 CHINESE e-commerce giant Alibaba said yesterday that it has decided to pursue an initial public offering (IPO) in the US, ending months of speculation that the firm would try to list in Hong Kong. The flotation could be the biggest since Facebook in 2012, with analysts estimating that Alibaba has a value of at least [...]
New online estate agencies plot a shake-up of property market March 17, 2014 EASYJET founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou and former Capita chief executive Paul Pindar have thrown their weight behind two separate online estate agencies in an attempt to shake up the property market. The Greek-Cypriot billionaire is preparing to launch a new online venture, easyProperty, that aims to challenge traditional estate agents by offering a quicker and [...]