Wall Street’s great escape as bank rules are softened June 27, 2010 AFTER a year of lobbying, the big beasts of American banking could only sit and watch in the early hours of Friday morning as Congress finalised its finance reform bill. A marathon 20-hour session sealed the draft version of the Dodd-Frank act, named after representative Barney Frank and senator Chris Dodd. Even as Dodd hailed [...]
Q&A: US FINANCIAL REFORM UNTANGLED June 27, 2010 Q. WHAT ARE THE ROOTS OF THE DODD-FRANK OVERHAUL? A. At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, US investment banks converted into holding companies so they could take emergency loans from the Federal Reserve, as well as taxpayer aid. Most of the capital distributed then has been repaid, but the public and politicians [...]
WHAT IMPACT WILL THE FINANCE REFORM BILL HAVE? June 27, 2010 BARACK OBAMA | US PRESIDENT “Our economic growth and prosperity depend on a strong financial sector… but we’ve all seen what happens when there’s inadequate oversight and insufficient transparency on Wall Street.” BOB CORKER | REPUBLICAN SENATOR FOR TENNESSEE “Some of the core areas that are very important have gone completely untouched. We did not [...]
BP in £470m battle with Transocean June 27, 2010 BP AND Transocean, owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig, look set to enter into a legal bloodbath after the oil major has given notice that it will issue a £470m claim against the rig’s insurance policy. The two are set to go head to head over who will cover costs linked to the tragic Gulf [...]
Shell vows that deepwater drills will continue June 27, 2010 PETER VOSER, chief executive at Royal Dutch Shell, has pledged that the company will remain committed to deepwater drilling despite the Gulf of Mexico disaster. Speaking in Cape Town yesterday, Voser said that with a climb in population and the rising demand for oil, avoiding deepwater drilling is not an option. “Given the rise in [...]
Spirits high at SSG after vodka boost June 27, 2010 STOCK Spirits Group (SSG) has turned in a record profit – fuelled by sales of the fastest growing vodka brand in the world. The company’s annual revenue soared by 17 per cent to €262m (£216m) in 2009 compared with the previous year. Earnings – before tax interest, taxes and amortisation – were up 46 per [...]
Alchemy sells Pierce stake June 27, 2010 ALCHEMY Partners will sell its stake in broker Seymour Pierce as it attempts to scale down its investments in the wake of the departure of founder Jon Moulton. Alchemy acquired 29.9 per cent of the City’s biggest small-cap brokerage after throwing its weight behind a management buyout in 2003. The Seymour Pierce employee benefit trust [...]
Eurozone divided on debt June 27, 2010 THE never-ending, seemingly billion-hour tennis marathon and the World Cup have been welcome distractions to the doom and gloom in the market. As the latest record high in Greek 5-year credit default swaps indicate, investors still think there is a real possibility that Greece could default on its gargantuan national debt. Marie Diron, an economic [...]
Shooting school sold for £8m June 27, 2010 Royal Berkshire Shooting School, the clay pigeon shooting and country sports company based in Pangbourne outside Reading, has changed hands for between £7m and £8m. Alex Newman, the former head of mining player Antofagasta’s corporate finance department, has bought the centre from property investor Bryan Richmond-Dodd. Newman said he was planning to plough money into the [...]
Economist pays £33m dividend June 27, 2010 The Economist Group, which owns the well-known Economist business magazine, has raised its dividend 38 per cent to £33m even though its pre-tax profits fell 10 per cent to £50m. The payout was shared by investors including the Rothschild and Schroder families. The Economist boosted its weekly circulation to 1.4m copies, offsetting a slump in [...]