What the other papers say this morning – 25 July 2013 July 24, 2013 FINANCIAL TIMES Osborne accused of bowing to City The UK chancellor was yesterday accused of bowing to City pressure and watering down key provisions to make Britain’s banks safer, as the Banking Reform bill began its passage through the House of Lords. Lord Lawson, the Tory former chancellor, said the Treasury was guilty of an [...]
Network Rail chief executive eyes departure July 24, 2013 NETWORK Rail boss Sir David Higgins looks set to leave the company next year, to coincide with the group’s five-year funding cycle. Sir David, who has been in the post since February 2011, has flagged up his looming departure within the firm to allow for a thorough search for his replacement, a company source said. [...]
Barclays ready for deal to plug balance sheet July 24, 2013 BARCLAYS is close to announcing an agreement with regulators to strengthen its balance sheet in order to meet new industry standards. Last month the Bank of England’s prudential regulatory authority (PRA) published a review of lenders’ capital positions and found Barclays did not meet the required three per cent leverage ratio by 0.5 percentage points. [...]
Dell demands rule change to keep £15.6bn takeover alive July 24, 2013 MICHAEL Dell yesterday made a last-ditch bid to win control of the computer manufacturer that bears his name, as he attempts to bring a six-month takeover saga to a close. Dell’s decision to up his existing $24.4bn (£15.6bn) offer by $150m – in return for changing vote rules to make it more likely to succeed – [...]
Witty admits Glaxo errors in China and says probe will hit business July 24, 2013 GLAXOSMITHKLINE’S business will inevitably be impacted by the Chinese bribery allegations, chief executive Sir Andrew Witty said yesterday, as he admitted the drugmaker’s internal controls had failed to pick up on problems. Speaking at the FTSE 100-listed firm’s second-quarter results presentation, Witty said Glaxo plans to commission an independent review into the “shameful allegations”, adding that [...]
Prosecutors eye SAC Capital July 24, 2013 US federal prosecutors are preparing to announce criminal charges against SAC Capital Advisors today, people familiar with the investigation said. Authorities do not plan to charge the fund’s founder and boss Steven Cohen with any criminal wrongdoing, said the source. A spokesman for SAC Capital declined to comment. It come after nearly seven years of [...]
New directors at Bank of America July 24, 2013 Wall Street giant Bank of America has named Clayton Rose and Pierre de Weck to its board of directors, taking the number of directors on the bank’s board to 15. Rose is a high ranking professor at Harvard Business School and was previously a senior executive at JP Morgan. De Weck was chairman and global [...]
Banks get €6bn hit from cap on card charges July 24, 2013 CONSUMERS could end up losing out from a new European cap on debit and credit card processing fees, lawyers and banks warned yesterday. The rules capping interchange fees are intended to help consumers by reducing the cost of transactions and were championed by EU commissioner Michel Barnier. The European Commission yesterday approved rules to limit [...]
Inside Track: All bets on Ross McEwan as field of candidates for RBS narrows July 24, 2013 AND then there was one. The search for Stephen Hester’s successor as chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was never going to be straightforward – George Osborne put paid to that prospect by engineering the current boss’s removal last month. So it was hardly surprising that Mark McCombe, the former HSBC executive who [...]
Wells Fargo takes title as world’s biggest bank by market value July 24, 2013 AMERICAN lender Wells Fargo has overtaken China’s ICBC as the world’s largest lender by market capitalisation, as growth in the US runs up against worries of a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy. Wells Fargo is now worth around $237bn (£154.9bn), above ICBC’s $225bn, according to Financial News. The Chinese lender has been the [...]