Nomura faces shock claims at tribunal July 22, 2009 NOMURA is accused of making a star salesman redundant because he blew the whistle on client abuses at the Lehman Brothers Europe division it bought last year, an employment tribunal heard yesterday. In accusations denied by Nomura, former sales star Paul Ryb said his redundancy from the Japanese bank in March 2009 was motivated by [...]
Consumers hoard 38m credit cards July 22, 2009 Consumers are holding on to 38m unused credit cards, with a total credit limit of £200bn, in a desperate bid to cling to a financial safety net, according to a report published yesterday by uSwitch.com. With unemployment at 2.38m and over 3m credit card rejections over the past 12 months, consumers are increasingly “loathe to [...]
BHP reports a mixed quarter July 22, 2009 BHP Billiton said yesterday that its fourth-quarter petroleum output reached a new record, with the company logging a four per cent rise year-on-year. BHP logged 37.56m barrels, or 408,000 barrels per day, in the three months to the end of June, largely driven by the start up of a new project in the Gulf of [...]
Fiat debt mars strong results July 22, 2009 FIAT beat expectations for second-quarter trading profit yesterday, helped by tax breaks for drivers trading in older, polluting cars, but its efforts to cut debt disappointed. Europe’s sixth-biggest car maker, which owns 20 per cent of US firm Chrysler, said trading profit for the quarter was €310m (£268m) after a loss of €48m in the [...]
Vodafone to get foothold in Ireland after BT deal July 22, 2009 BT and Vodafone have signed a partnership worth €4.8m (£4.1m) which will see Vodafone become the Republic of Ireland’s second-largest fixed-line broadband provider. Under the agreement, which is still to be approved by the Irish Competition Authority, BT Ireland will transfer its 84,000 consumer and 3,000 small business customers to Vodafone, and provide the company [...]
BBC BEATS SUGAR BACK July 22, 2009 LORD Alan Sugar’s hit show The Apprentice could be rescheduled next year to avoid a clash with the general election, after the BBC Trust ruled that his government role poses a “greater than normal risk” to BBC impartiality. Sugar became Labour’s enterprise tsar last month and took his seat in the House of Lords earlier [...]
Pubs call time at record rate July 22, 2009 PUBS in Britain are closing at a record rate of 52 a week, costing 24,000 jobs over the past year, the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) said yesterday. The new figures show that in the last 12 months alone 2,377 pubs have called time on their business. There are now 53,466 pubs in Britain, [...]
CITY VIEWS: HAVE YOU SEEN A DECLINE IN CITY PUB DRINKING IN THE DOWNTURN? July 22, 2009 RAQUEL FERNANDEZ ALIUM PARTNERS“I haven’t seen a difference – people probably feel like life is so difficult at the moment they deserve a drink. I’d say lunchtime drinking in the City is as prevalent as it always was, with people driving to secure more business. Perhaps after-work going out is slightly down, but that’s not [...]
NatExpress in new approach July 22, 2009 NATIONAL Express was thrown into fresh turmoil yesterday when the transport group said it received a second approach for the business less than an hour after rival FirstGroup walked away from a potential bid. The new suitor for the troubled bus and rail group is likely to be another trade buyer like Stagecoach, Go-Ahead or [...]
Lord Myners unfair to Bank of England July 22, 2009 SO Lord Myners, the City minister, believes the Bank of England to be too bookish, too rarefied almost, to take on the regulatory functions currently controlled by the Financial Services Authority. As he told us in an interview yesterday, he sees it as an academic institution imbued with a culture at odds with that required [...]