SPINVOX ACTIVIST KICKS UP A RUMPUS August 17, 2009 THE rumpus surrounding controversial voice-to-text messaging firm SpinVox continues apace. After the firm recently admitted some of its messages are translated into text manually by workers outside the UK, some former customers are up in arms – and I read on a techie blog that one in particular is spearheading a drive to persuade people [...]
CITY EYE August 17, 2009 DON’T LOOK DOWN: a resident descends the concrete staircase in the Cromwell Tower on the Barbican Estate. The tower, which stands 123 ft high, was built in 1973 and named after the historical Republican figure Oliver Cromwell.
FSA TO PROBE KEY BARCAP BONUS DEALS August 17, 2009 &9632; FSA will demand to see the contracts of five traders&9632; JP Morgan and Barclays Capital in row over poached staff&9632; Think tank calls for Commission to report on high earners CITY watchdog the Financial Services Authority (FSA) last night said it will demand to see the contracts of five traders being hired by Barclays [...]
GOODWIN BACK ON HOME TURF August 17, 2009 SIR Fred Goodwin has been pictured strolling the streets near his £3m Edinburgh home for the first time since he fled the country for the South of France amid a blaze of public hatred earlier this year. City A.M. revealed last week that the disgraced former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive is already looking [...]
Bonus debate is heading out of control August 17, 2009 THE row over City bonuses shows no signs of petering out, certainly if the last 24 hours is anything to go by. Yesterday the focus of everybody’s attention was Bob Diamond’s BarCap and its £30m offer to hire Todd Edgar, a commodities trader, and four other members of his team. Edgar and his colleagues left [...]
Diamond bags a golden boy August 17, 2009 BARCLAYS Capital boss Bob Diamond might well be justified in offering £30m for star metals trader Todd Edgar and his team – the trader is known for his nerves of steel and Midas touch when it comes to market calls. The 35-year old, who has ditched JP Morgan to join Diamond, is well regarded in [...]
AIG boss nets $7m a year August 17, 2009 AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP (AIG), the government-controlled insurer, said yesterday its new chief executive Robert Benmosche will be paid $7m (£4.3m) a year and could earn millions more in performance bonuses on top of that. Benmosche will receive $3m in cash and $4m in stock under his annual pay package, AIG said in a filing with [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 17, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES 3I TO OFFLOAD EUROPEAN INVESTMENTS3i, former powerhouse of Europe’s venture capital industry, has entered exclusive talks to sell a portfolio of 36 European venture capital investments to a consortium led by Coller Capital and HarbourVest Partners for about £100m. The talks follow 3i’s decision last year to abandon early stage investment in start-up [...]
One million face pension misery August 17, 2009 Half of all UK companies will have closed their defined benefit pension schemes to existing members within three years, according to research out yesterday by Watson Wyatt. This means that over one million employees who are currently saving for retirement through a defined benefit scheme will be relying on a defined contribution scheme instead. Three-quarters [...]
Fed extends TALF programme August 17, 2009 The US Federal Reserve said yesterday it was extending to mid-2010 the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility aimed at boosting lending in the ailing commercial real estate market. But it said it did not plan to expand the facility to cover assets not already eligible.