Standard Life hit with FSA fine for pensions failures January 20, 2010 INSURANCE group Standard Life has been fined £2.45m by the City watchdog for misleading pension customers about underlying investment risks. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) said that between July 2006 and February last year, the insurer produced misleading marketing material for its pension sterling fund that put its 98,000 retail investors at risk of “unexpected [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS January 20, 2010 CABLE & WIRELESS Citigroup upgrades Cable & Wireless (C&W) to “buy” saying the shares, which underperformed in 2009, are due to be re-rated this year. It expects confidence to improve post the March demerger, which it believes will reveal “hidden value”. “Structural and macro recovery in 2010 should raise confidence that consensus is now at [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS January 20, 2010 Boylesports The Irish bookmaker has appointed Lee Richardson as its new chief executive. Richardson, who has a passion for restoring and driving classic cars in his spare time, joins from Canadian gaming software provider Chartwell Technology, where he led its licensing and marketing arm. He was also previously chief operating officer for Coral Eurobet, where [...]
TfL and Great Portland row over new site January 20, 2010 GREAT Portland Estates clashed with Transport for London (TfL) over the amount the London landlord was paid for two buildings that will make way to build Crossrail’s Bond Street station. TfL paid the property developer £35.9m for 18 and 19 Hanover Square via a compulsory purchase order last month. However, the business insists the properties [...]
City advisers gearing up for a flood of M&A January 20, 2010 ABBEY National, Rover, Corus. Just three Great British companies that have fallen prey to foreign predators in recent years. You can add Cadbury to that list now that the board has recommended the takeover approach from American rival Kraft – an £11.7bn deal which is likely to be waved through by institutional investors. Forget the [...]
Commercial property sector sees growing signs of improvement January 20, 2010 THE hard-hit commercial property sector is finally showing signs of life, according to a new survey from the Royal Institute for Chartered Surveyors (RICS) published today. In London, the amount of office space available to tenants in London declined for the first time in two years and rents are no longer expected to fall in [...]
First fall in jobless total since 2007 January 20, 2010 THE number of people out of work in the UK has fallen for the first time in 18 months, official figures indicated yesterday. There were 2.46m unemployed people in November, down from 2.49m the previous month. This puts the unemployment rate at 7.8 per cent, down from 7.9 per cent, according to the Office of [...]
Bank’s MPC unites on vote to maintain rates at record low January 20, 2010 THE MPC voted unanimously to hold interest rates at 0.5 per cent and to leave its quantitative easing (QE) target at £200bn at its meeting earlier this month. The unity, revealed in the minutes of the January meeting released yesterday, was widely expected. Although consumer prices surged to 2.9 per cent in December, the Bank [...]
Government wasted hundreds of millions on training places, MPs say January 20, 2010 THE government wasted hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer money to fund training places that employers would have stumped up for, according to an influential group of MPs. In a highly critical report published today, the public accounts committee will say that the government’s Train to Gain programme has been “mismanaged from the outset”. [...]
Wolseley duo to return with a breakfast pad on city doorstep January 20, 2010 RESTAURATEURS Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, owners of the Wolseley, have managed to keep this extraordinarily quiet, but word reaches The Capitalist that they’re in the early stages of launching another power breakfast hotspot right on the City’s doorstep. Rex Restaurants has long been enjoying the spoils of the Wolseley’s popularity with just about everyone [...]