Medical assessments to set retirement income August 26, 2013 PEOPLE approaching retirement should prepare to have all aspects of their medical history analysed when they purchase an annuity, a top insurance company boss has told City A.M. “You can’t stop the march of science,” said Clive Bannister, chief executive of FTSE 250 life assurance consolidation firm Phoenix Group. “Annuities have typically been priced on [...]
New York judge orders JP Morgan to pay $42.5m to Len Blavatnik August 26, 2013 A NEW York state judge has ordered JPMorgan Chase & Co to pay the billionaire Leonard Blavatnik $42.5m (£27.3m) plus interest, finding the bank liable for breach of contract after it was accused of mismanaging an investment account by betting on risky mortgage securities. In a decision made public yesterday, New York State Supreme Court [...]
Wind turbine market to surge as investors dash for renewables August 26, 2013 SIEMENS, the world’s number three maker of wind turbines, expects the global wind power market to more than quadruple by 2030, lifted by strong growth in Asia. “The market will shift away from Europe significantly,” Markus Tacke, chief executive of the German company’s Wind Power division, said at a renewable energy conference in Berlin. He [...]
Prefequity takes maiden stake August 26, 2013 PREFEQUITY, the mid market private equity house, has teamed up with BNY Mellon’s credit subsidiary Alcentra to make its maiden investment. The Mayfair based company, co-founded by former Merrill Lynch director Theo Dickens, will back Altrincham based business CorpAcq, an investment firm. The deal is Prefequity’s initial investment from its first Prefequity Growth Capital Fund. [...]
Activist investor Loeb ups stake in Sotheby’s August 26, 2013 SHARES in Sotheby’s shot up during afternoon trading in the US yesterday, after its was revealed that activist investor Dan Loeb’s Third Point hedge fund had upped its stake in the auction house. Third Point spent $156.7m (£101m) to take its stake in Sotheby’s to 5.7 per cent, according to a regulatory filing made in [...]
Would-be German Chancellor threatens US trade agreement August 26, 2013 GERMANY’S most prominent opposition politician lashed out at the US over the weekend, threatening to stall negotiations for a major trade agreement over allegations of spying. Peer Steinbruck, who is Angela Merkel’s main opponent in September’s election, suggested that he would stall EU negotiations for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the US until [...]
Train firms told to tell customers which services are most crowded August 26, 2013 COMMUTERS should be told which train services are the most overcrowded, rail minister Norman Baker has said to operating companies. Baker has written to all train operators calling on them to give each train a red, amber or green rating to allow passengers to avoid the most cramped services where possible. “Publication of train-by-train crowding [...]
Fresh strike action hits South Africa August 26, 2013 SOUTH African construction and airport workers went on strike for higher wages yesterday, extending a series of industrial action threatening to slow growth in Africa’s largest economy. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said about 90,000 of its members in the construction sector planned to down tools. More than 50 per cent of employers were [...]
Redundancy bill down for first time since crisis August 26, 2013 THE COST of redundancy pay-outs has dropped for the first time since the start of the credit crunch, new research out today shows. British companies spent £4.1bn on staff redundancies in the year to 31 March, down 11 per cent on the previous year, according to commercial law firm EMW. The number of redundancy payments [...]
Sweden plans tougher rules for banks in bid to avoid fresh crash August 26, 2013 SWEDEN should introduce tough new capital requirements for its banks, already subject to some of the world’s most stringent regulations, to shield taxpayers from any future bailouts, the government said yesterday. Although none of Sweden’s banks went bust in the financial crisis, the sector is viewed as a potential pressure point because it dwarfs the [...]