Former L’Occitane boss and CVC Capital Partners plot bid for The Body Shop March 12, 2017 Former L’Occitane boss Emmanuel Osti is plotting a bid for The Body Shop. Osti is working with CVC Capital Partners, which agreed to sell control of Formula One to John Malone’s Liberty Media last year, for the takeover. The Body Shop was put on the market by owners L’oreal last month. The French cosmetics giant [...]
Iceland defrosts the capital controls it put in place because of the 2008 financial crisis March 12, 2017 The Icelandic government announced today it will be completely lifting on Tuesday the capital controls it put in place against country's individuals, firms, and pension funds to keep it propped during the fallout of the financial crisis. The government and Central Bank of Iceland have been over the last year whittling down the controls, which were put [...]
Exclusive: How much the Financial Conduct Authority spent on its RBS GRG small business unit report March 12, 2017 The long-awaited report into Royal Bank of Scotland's Global Restructuring Group (GRG) cost the City watchdog more than £40,000 for the associated prep and monitoring work alone. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) revealed under a Freedom of Information request submitted by City A.M. that it ran up a bill of £40,722.68 for scoping, overseeing the review and [...]
Sweden bids to prise financial services power from UK after Brexit as minister visits Citigroup and fintech firms in London March 12, 2017 Sweden is the latest European country making a push to win financial services power after Brexit, having sent a minister to London to woo fintech firms and a major Wall Street bank. Per Bolund, the country’s financial markets minister, visited fintech incubator Level 39 in Canary Wharf on Friday before hosting more than a dozen more [...]
Brexit rebels in the Lords must be prepared to back down admits Heseltine March 12, 2017 Tory peer and former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine has warned the House of Lords against waging a long-running battle to make changes to the Article 50 Bill. The unelected chamber installed two amendments to the legislation, on protections for the rights of EU nationals, and offering parliament a “meaningful” vote on any new trading relationship with the EU. [...]
Bovis Homes confirms merger talks with Galliford Try after rejecting Redrow offer March 12, 2017 Bovis Homes is in £2.5bn merger talks with fellow housebuilder Galliford Try after rejecting a bid from Redrow. FTSE 250-listed Galliford Try said the tie-up would create “a new major housebuilder with national scale and geographic coverage through the combination of the sixth and eighth largest UK housebuilders by completions”. Bovis, which is also on [...]
Google’s DeepMind is in talks with National Grid to apply artificial intelligence to energy use March 12, 2017 The Google-owned star British artificial intelligence company DeepMind is in talks with the National Grid about a potential partnership, with the possibility of using the technology to make the supply of energy across the UK more efficient. “There's huge potential for predictive machine learning technology to help energy systems reduce their environmental impact," said a spokesperson for the [...]
HSBC chairman search: Former man from the Pru Mark Tucker will replace Douglas Flint March 12, 2017 Mark Tucker, chief executive and president of AIA and former boss of Prudential, has been confirmed as chairman of HSBC, marking the first time the bank has appointed an external chairman. Tucker will receive an annual fee of £1.5m and a one-time relocation benefit of £300,000 for moving from Hong Kong to London. He will take up [...]
Brexit secretary David Davis says ministers are planning for “all possible outcomes” of EU talks March 12, 2017 Brexit secretary David Davis has moved to reassure MPs that the government is undertaking contingency planning on Brexit, after a critical report called for more preparations. The Foreign Affairs select committee today warned "a complete breakdown in negotiations represents a very destructive outcome leading to mutually assured damage for the EU and the UK", and [...]
Article 50: Six risks of a Brexit “no deal”, as MPs warn Theresa May to plan now for negotiation failure March 12, 2017 "No deal is better than a bad deal" Theresa May famously said, outlining her big plans for Brexit last month. But now an influential group of MPs have told the Prime Minister she better start planning for a "no deal" scenario just days before she's expected to start the firing gun on the UK's official exit [...]