Tony Blair warns against move to left and urges Labour to the “radical centre” June 11, 2015 Tony Blair has said Labour will lose the next election without a "fundamental revision" of its strategy. In a move to intervene in the party's leadership race, the former Prime Minister has warned positioning itself to the left would be a bad decision. Read more: This is how the Labour leadership race is stacking up [...]
Standard & Poor’s lowers Greece’s credit rating to CCC, warns it could be downgraded further June 11, 2015 Well, this is a surprise. Standard & Poor's has lowered Greece's credit rating one notch to CCC and said it could be lowered again within the next year as the country's financial situation worsens. Although normally S&P would be restricted from altering its rating of Greece outside a “pre-established calendar”, the agency said [...]
Network Rail profits halve as company admits it is not keeping up with pace of change June 11, 2015 After strike threats and widespread condemnation over ongoing travel chaos, Network Rail is continuing its annus horribilis with a set of pretty dismal results. The figures: Network Rail's pre-tax profits halved for the year to March 31, from £1.-4bn to £506m, while opreating profit fell 13.3 per cent to £1.74bn. Revenues also slipped [...]
Mansion House speech: George Osborne kicks starts £60bn sell-off with RBS stake June 10, 2015 Chancellor George Osborne last night kicked off a £60bn sale of state-owned financial assets, announcing he will sell a stake in bailed-out bank RBS in the coming months. The enormous wave of privatisations includes the sale of a remaining £11.5bn holding in Lloyds, while bidders including Goldman Sachs compete to buy £13bn of mortgage assets [...]
Mansion House speech: The age of irresponsibility is over, says Mark Carney June 10, 2015 Tens of thousands more City workers face an unprecedented crackdown on bad behaviour. The Bank of England last night recommended extending the senior managers’ regime to all fixed income, currencies and commodities traders at banks, as well as their counterparts at interdealer brokerages and buy-side asset managers. Bank of England governor Mark Carney also wants [...]
George Osborne’s great government sell-off: Taxpayers risk getting burnt as sun may yet shine on RBS June 10, 2015 So after almost seven years, the moment has arrived. The symbolic importance of George Osborne’s announcement last night that the Treasury is to begin selling Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) shares at a loss is hard to overstate. “I’m not interested in what is easy – I’m interested in what is right,” he told [...]
Unions to meet HSBC UK chiefs June 10, 2015 UNION leaders representing staff at HSBC will meet the bank’s UK boss Antonio Simoes on Monday, officials said yesterday, to discuss the planned 8,000 job cuts. Unite the Union’s Dominic Hook said he wants to minimise compulsory redundancies. “HSBC does not have a voluntary redundancy policy, so that is near the top of our list [...]
Winters pledges StanChart reform June 10, 2015 NEW chief executive Bill Winters wrote to staff at Standard Chartered yesterday saying they should brace themselves for “tough times ahead.” Winters was recruited to replace Peter Sands, after a series of poor financial results put pressure on the bank’s share price. Although he praised the institution as “fabulous,” Winters also said StanChart needs to [...]
Alexis Tsipras: Lenders want Greece to return to growth June 10, 2015 Greece’s Prime Minister emerged from another round of crunch talks with the country’s creditors in the early hours of this morning, insisting that his fellow leaders are leaning towards his way of thinking. Alexis Tsipras met with Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande in Brussels and when he left the building he insisted the German and [...]
North Sea firms forced to slash projects in face of low oil price June 10, 2015 Over two-thirds of North Sea oil firms have been forced to scrap projects due to plummeting oil prices over the past year, a new report reveals today. Although the price of benchmark Brent crude has rallied in the last few days, trading yesterday at around $66 a barrel, it has yet to approach the level [...]