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.
Essar bids for Shell refineries August 17, 2009 Essar, the Indian energy, steel and shipping conglomerate, yesterday made a formal bid of around £1.2bn for three European Royal Dutch Shell refineries. The assets are on sale as part of the Anglo-Dutch oil group’s restructuring of its downstream operations.
Turquoise is eyeing a sale August 17, 2009 TURQUOISE, the high-profile equity trading platform owned by a consortium of investment banks, has hired UBS to find a buyer for the business. The City trading platform, launched last year as a rival to existing stock exchanges, is believed to have sent out documents to 18 firms including the London Stock Exchange, Deutsche Boerse, NYSE [...]
World markets tumble due to fears over economic recovery August 17, 2009 GLOBAL markets stumbled yesterday, prompting fears that the recent stock market rally could be over. In London, the FTSE 100 shed 68.96 points, or 1.5 per cent, closing at 4,645.01. Across the Atlantic, the Dow Jones Industrial Average also shed 186 points, or two per cent. Sterling fell against the dollar while the price of [...]