City watchdog hands £1.8m fine to JLT arm December 19, 2013 INSURANCE broker JLT Speciality Ltd has been fined £1.8m by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) over bribery and corruption failings at the company between February 2009 and May 2012. The broker, an arm of insurance giant Jardine Lloyd Thompson, accepted the FCA’s analysis that it had put “unacceptable” bribery controls in place on overseas markets [...]
Swedish private equity victory December 19, 2013 SWEDISH private equity firm EQT secured a major victory yesterday as a court struck down an earlier tax verdict that would have meant billions of crowns in higher taxes. The legal battle was the first in a string of similar cases and likely to set a decisive precedent between Sweden’s tax agency and private equity [...]
Ofcom rules for BT Openreach to improve service December 19, 2013 OFCOM has proposed a set of stricter rules for BT’s Openreach division that will require 80 per cent of fault repairs to be made within two working days, regardless of factors such as severe weather conditions. Sky and TalkTalk – who offer phone and internet services to their customers over BT’s network infrastructure – have [...]
Co-op beefs up governance by hiring new secretary from Lloyds December 19, 2013 THE EMBATTLED Co-operative Group yesterday hired Claire Davies as its new group secretary, replacing Moira Lees, who retired last month. Solicitor Davies has held a range of relatively high profile roles at Lloyds, Legal and General, Ernst and Young and the Woolwich over 27 years and will be involved with the ongoing governance shakeup. The [...]
UBS offloads employee share ownership business to Montagu December 19, 2013 UBS WEALTH Management yesterday sold its European stock benefit plans business to Montagu Private Equity, the owner of high street retailer Maplin Electronics. The deal, which comes after a spate of sales by Montagu, comes as the Swiss bank seeks to offload its non-core assets from its balance sheet. Terms of the deal were not [...]
Mercedes-Benz snaps up stake in Aston Martin in engine pact December 19, 2013 GERMANY’S Daimler said yesterday it will receive up to a five per cent stake in luxury sports carmaker Aston Martin in exchange for supplying engines and electronic components to the 100-year-old British firm. Aston Martin will team up with the German car maker’s high-performance Mercedes-AMG GmbH division to develop a new generation of bespoke V8 [...]
Banks get time to meet Volcker asset sale rules December 19, 2013 US REGULATORS said yesterday that banks do not need to sell certain securities immediately under the Volcker rule, but instead have until July 2015 to decide if the investments comply with the new rules. Bank regulators last week approved the final Volcker rule, which restricts banks’ ability to make bets with their own money and [...]
Probability plans to enter the US market in 2014 as losses widen December 19, 2013 PROBABILITY reported in its half year results yesterday that gaming revenues fell 20 per cent year-on-year and that the online gambling firm plans to enter the US market next year. Shares in the firm plummeted by 24 per cent after yesterday’s announcement to 36p a share. The company nearly tripled its loss for the period, [...]
Imperial Tobacco makes tax payment after settling dispute December 19, 2013 IMPERIAL Tobacco paid around £170m in UK corporation tax in its 2013 financial year, more than its total UK tax bill for the previous seven years, after settling a dispute with the tax authority. Imperial Tobacco, the world’s fifth-largest tobacco company by market capitalisation, declined to give details of what it described as “a confidential [...]
Aukett snaps up rival architects’ firm for £1.6m December 19, 2013 AIM-LISTED architectural firm Aukett Fitzroy Robinson (AFR) has snapped up the European arm of American rival Swanke Hayden Connell (SHCE) for £1.6m, in a further sign of returning confidence in the market. The new company will be called Aukett Swanke and is expected to generate £16m in annual sales, employing 340 staff across eight countries. [...]