Wall street legend passes away, aged 109 February 26, 2015 Irving Kahn, the Manhattan money manager whose longevity enabled him to carry firsthand lessons from the Great Depression well into the 21st century, has died, aged 109. He was still working three days a week last year, commuting one mile from his apartment to his firm’s midtown office.
Peter Hambro wins battle for miner’s rescue February 26, 2015 INVESTORS in Russia-focused gold miner Petropavlovsk yesterday voted in favour of the board’s proposed restructuring plan, rejecting an alternative proposal from activist shareholder Sapinda. The troubled London-listed miner will now proceed with a deeply discounted $235m (£152m) rights issue underwritten by founders Peter Hambro and Pavel Maslovskiy. Hambro. the chairman, said: “Our shareholders have voted [...]
Relief for Greece as deposits start flowing back into banks February 26, 2015 GREEK banks lost €12bn (£8.7bn) of deposits in January, according to figures released yesterday by the country’s central bank. Nondas Nicolaides, an analyst at ratings agency Moody’s, estimates that up to last week, the banking system lost over €20bn of deposits from the €164bn private sector deposit base it had at the end of November. [...]
Standard Chartered’s boardroom bloodbath: Chief exec Peter Sands and chairman Sir John Peace are out February 26, 2015 Standard Chartered delighted investors with a boardroom revolution yesterday, announcing the exit of chief executive Peter Sands, chairman Sir John Peace and four other senior directors. The troubled emerging markets specialist had come under increasing pressure to change tack, after the share price fell by half over the last two years. Sands had previously [...]
Surveys reveal UK consumers are optimistic on the economy February 26, 2015 CONSUMER confidence is at pre-recession levels, new figures show. The consumer confidence index released today by German market research company GFK maintained a score of one for February. At the peak of the financial crisis, the index hit minus 40, but is now at levels last seen in 2005. Another measure of consumer confidence released [...]
GDP gets boost from exports February 26, 2015 UK GDP growth in the final three months of the year came in at 0.5 per cent, in line with first estimates. The new figures reveal the split between consumption, investment, government consumption and net exports. There was a drop in investment of 0.5 per cent, the data from the Office for National Statistics yesterday [...]
Shard makers planning a Trilogy February 26, 2015 A THIRD building is being planned to join the Shard and Baby Shard to create a “trilogy” of towers designed by award-winning architect Renzo Piano. Sellar Property Group, the firm responsible for the two existing buildings, is in talks with contractors over the new project, which is expected to result in an addition to the [...]
RBS’ recovery hurt by German Coutts tax probe February 26, 2015 RBS’ SHARES took a tumble yesterday as the bailed-out bank warned of more legal costs to come, including a tax evasion investigation by German authorities into its private banking arm Coutts. The revelation came as the bank reported falling losses for 2014 as its cost-cutting programme outpaced the decline in revenues. It lost £3.5bn in [...]
Bank of England trains 150 staff to monitor forex markets properly after rate-rigging scandal February 26, 2015 More than 150 Bank of England staff have been retrained to keep an eye on foreign exchange markets properly, in the wake of the manipulation scandal. Although a review led by Lord Grabiner found the Bank’s staff had not done anything wrong, officials are concerned that they did not uncover the benchmark manipulation which led [...]
Insurer investors unimpressed with turnaround results in 2014 February 26, 2015 INVESTORS dumped shares at insurer RSA yesterday, with prices falling by 4.71 per cent, despite the company posting a return to profit in 2014. Pre-tax profits were jumped to £275m, from a loss of £244m in 2013, but were still a fraction of what the firm believes it can achieve in the coming years. Combined [...]