Segro agrees Brixton offer July 9, 2009 INDUSTRIAL landlord Segro said yesterday it agreed an offer for warehouse specialist Brixton in a deal worth £109.4m. The planned combination will give Segro – formerly known as Slough Estates – a property portfolio worth £5.5bn based on May valuations. Segro is accompanying the Brixton deal with a £250m share issue, half of which will come [...]
Bond insurers obliged to pay out over Bradford & Bingley July 9, 2009 COMPANIES that provide insurance against bond defaults will have to pay out to cover the recent non-payments by nationalised building society Bradford & Bingley (B&B), following a key ruling yesterday. The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) ruled that B&B’s failure to keep up with payments on £325m of Tier 2 bonds constituted a “credit [...]
STANFORD DENIED BAIL July 9, 2009 ALLEN Stanford, the Texas financier, will remain in jail after a federal judge yesterday denied his request to reconsider detention pending trial. Stanford, who faces criminal fraud charges, was initially granted bail by a judge, but federal prosecutors successfully argued before US District Judge David Hittner that the billionaire was a serious flight risk who [...]
Man boosted by private investor sales July 9, 2009 MAN Group, the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund, said yesterday funds under management fell over the first quarter of the year, but investors were buoyed by a surge in private investor sales and better-than-expected levels of redemptions. The group reported a 7.5 per cent drop in funds under management over the period, from $46.8bn [...]
FSA will publish complaints July 9, 2009 THE FINANCIAL Services Authority (FSA) is to name and shame financial services companies that provoke the most consumer complaints, bringing to an end its policy of being tight-lipped on its investigations. The proposals, which were partially outlined in chancellor Alistair Darling’s white paper on financial regulation would see companies forced to publish their own complaints [...]
Women’s earning power decimated by having kids July 9, 2009 HAVING children has a devastating impact on women’s earning power, a new report has revealed. The report, compiled by women’s rights campaign group the Fawcett Society and entitled “Not Having It All”, said that childless women working full time earned on average 9 per cent less than men, but that the gender pay gap rose [...]
Cameron’s head of communications to face Commons probe over phone-taps July 9, 2009 CONSERVATIVE party director of communications Andy Coulson is likely to face a grilling by the Commons culture committee, as it investigates alleged phone-bugging by The News of The World (NoW) during the time that he was the newspaper’s editor. The investigation follows allegations made by the Guardian newspaper that Rupert Murdochs’ tabloid title paid up [...]
Boris Johnson warns EC on new hedge fund rules July 9, 2009 BORIS Johnson accused the European Commission (EC) of trying to “strangle” the City with its draft directive on regulation of hedge funds. The London mayor said the EC’s proposals threatened to drive alternative investment managers out of the City, where 80 per cent of Europe’s $300bn (£184bn) in hedge fund assets are managed. Private equity [...]
Nationwide defends its 125pc loan July 9, 2009 BRITAIN’S largest mutual Nationwide yesterday defended its decision to launch a mortgage allowing customers to borrow up to 125 per cent of the value of their property. The product is aimed at homeowners in negative equity who want to move to a house worth more than their own. But critics warned yesterday that the mortgage [...]
CITY VIEWS: SHOULD NATIONWIDE BE OFFERING THE 125 PER CENT MORTGAGE? July 9, 2009 MATT WING MATT WING ASSOCIATES“If you already have equity in a house then it might be okay. I can see that it would appeal to people in that position, but there will be those who take it and cannot afford it. I think other banks could start to offer the same thing.”STEPHEN THOMPSON TALBOT UNDERWRITING“I [...]