BlueBay opens Euro bond arm June 7, 2010 FIXED-income asset manager BlueBay has launched a new European rates business to take advantage of the turbulence in the eurozone sovereign bond market. The new division will be run by Mark Dowding, who joins as a senior portfolio manager from Deutsche Asset Management, where he was European head of institutional fixed income. Dowding will work [...]
ISA sales surged in April to hit new nine-year high June 7, 2010 THE investment Management Association’s (IMA) monthly fund statistics yesterday ISA sales in April were their highest for nine years while bonds remain the leading asset class. The statistics give new detail on retail sales channels and information on Fund Platform transactions. They also revealed that fund platforms’ market share of funds under management is increasing [...]
Commercial property loans showing signs of improvement as rents rise June 7, 2010 LOANS to commercial property firms rose by £727m in the last quarter, the first quarterly increase in a year, figures released yesterday showed. The rise contrasts with a £3.2bn overall drop in lending to UK businesses in the last three months, according to Bank of England statistics obtained by NB Real Estate. Loan-to-value ratios are [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS June 7, 2010 THE RESTAURANT GROUP Evolution Securities has initiated coverage of The Restaurant Group (RTN) with a “buy” rating. Evolution said the group’s earnings should double in the next 10 years – five years under its bull case. While the near–term outlook remains uncertain, according to Evolution, RTN’s strong cash generation and trading resilience reassure. AVEVA Aveva [...]
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 [...]
RMT UNION VOTES FOR TUBE STRIKE June 6, 2010 LONDON’S transport network could be thrown into chaos this summer after tube drivers voted in favour of strike action. A walk-out could spark the worst underground disruption since the two-day strike last June that left thousands of workers stranded. Rail union RMT’s members voted by more than 90 per cent to strike over a “continued [...]
G20 scraps global tax on banks June 6, 2010 THE government has vowed to press ahead with its plan to tax British banks – even though the world’s top finance chiefs have scrapped a universal levy on financial firms. Speaking after the G20 summit in Korea, chancellor George Osborne said: “We’ll introduce a levy regardless of whether other countries will or will not. It’s [...]
Browne wins Whitehall role June 6, 2010 LORD Browne, the former chief executive of BP, is set to be appointed as the government’s most senior independent director in a massive shake-up of Whitehall. He is being enlisted as part of plans to inject private sector thinking into the senior civil service, which is often accused of being wasteful and over-staffed. Browne will [...]
G20’s failure was all too predictable June 6, 2010 IT is funny how quickly moods change. It was not that long ago that the G20, courtesy of Gordon Brown’s spin machine, was being hailed as a quasi-mythical authority that was about to solve all of the world’s economic problems. There would be a new era of enlightened global coordination, we were told – in [...]
Kerviel trial set to begin June 6, 2010 JEROME KERVIEL, the rogue trader blamed by the French bank Société Générale for clocking up losses of more than £4bn, defends himself in court tomorrow facing a possible five year prison term. 33 year-old Kerviel is being defended by one of France’s best known criminal lawyers Olivier Metzner. Metzner is seen as having a tough [...]