Barclays gets 1bn BGI boost December 1, 2009 BARCLAYS last night cheered a £1.3bn boost from the expected sale of its asset management arm to US fund manager BlackRock, due to a 62 per cent hike in the fund manager’s shares since the deal was struck in June. The bank said it had completed the $15.2bn (£9.1bn) sale of Barclays Global Investors (BGI) [...]
High earners set to be hit by new taxes December 1, 2009 FOR those bankers who had become a tad complacent, I have some news for you: the Tories are still not ruling out a windfall tax on banks if their behaviour doesn’t conform to what is expected of them on pay and lending. I asked Mark Hoban, a key member of George Osborne’s shadow treasury team, [...]
Tullow eyes Uganda stake December 1, 2009 EXPLORER Tullow Oil is “seriously considering” buying Heritage Oil’s Ugandan field stake in a move which would potentially scupper a $1.5bn (£902m) deal with Eni, City A.M. can confirm. Tullow and Heritage are equal partners in two exploration blocks in Uganda’s Lake Albert. Heritage has been in early talks with Eni, Italy’s biggest energy company, [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING December 1, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES HIT HAMSTER RANGE LIFTS CHARACTER GROUPToymaker and distributor The Character Group has predicted Christmas shortages of its most popular lines of children’s gifts, including Go Go Pets, based on a range of battery-powered interactive hamsters. John Lewis, the department store chain, has already imposed a limit of one order per customer for the [...]
Obama boosts troops by 30,000 December 1, 2009 President Barack Obama will today say he is sending 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan by next summer to speed up the battle against the Taliban and bring some soldiers home in 19 months. Obama will say the troops will be deployed in the first part of 2010 at the fastest pace possible. There are [...]
AIG makes $25bn from disposals December 1, 2009 Insurance giant American International Group yesterday cut its debt to the US taxpayer by $25bn (£15bn) by selling stakes in two of its subsidiaries to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. AIG said that under the debt-for-equity swap the NY Fed would receive preferred shares with a liquidation preference worth $16bn in American Life [...]
Sarkozy: EU is in charge of City of London December 1, 2009 FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday gloated over the nomination of a French EU Internal Market Commissioner, saying it would help European economic ideals prevail over Britain’s current system. Hailing the appointment of Michel Barnier, a former agriculture minister in his government, Sarkozy blamed the Anglo-Saxon model for the global economic downturn and crowed: “Do you [...]
MPC member moots a housing bubble tax December 1, 2009 BANK of England policymaker Adam Posen yesterday called for taxes on British homeowners like capital gains tax and stamp duty to be hiked in line with house price inflation, in a bid to prevent another housing bubble. Interest rates are too blunt an instrument to prevent boom and bust in the housing market, Posen said. [...]
Treasury must find extra 15bn, says the Item Club December 1, 2009 CHANCELLOR Alistair Darling will have to find another £15bn of spending cuts or tax hikes if the Treasury is to meet the projections for public borrowing set out in the 2009 Budget, an Ernst & Young Item Club report will say today. The report comes ahead of next week’s pre-budget report, in which Darling is [...]
West End rent is the highest in the world December 1, 2009 LONDON’S West End has regained its title as the most expensive place in the world to rent an office, overtaking Tokyo in the past six months as the recovery in demand for space begins to take hold. Despite recording an annual tumble in rents of nearly 18 per cent, banking and finance companies are increasing [...]