Rent prompts office moves February 19, 2013 LONDON’S escalating rents are forcing two-thirds of businesses to consider moving offices, a new study seen by City A.M. has found. A OnePoll survey commissioned by outsourcing specialist Capital Capture found that 63 per cent of firms in the finance, IT, legal and insurance industries have considered moving, with over half blaming property-relating costs. Nearly [...]
Treasury in tax evasion deal with the Manx February 19, 2013 HUNDREDS of millions of pounds in unpaid back taxes will be recouped next year under a new agreement with the Isle of Man, the Treasury announced yesterday. A disclosure facility aims to claim taxes on undeclared incomes back to 1999, while an automatic tax information exchange agreement should prevent similar tax evasion occurring in the [...]
Bank of America pays its boss Moynihan $12.1m as shares rise February 19, 2013 BANK of America boss Brian Moynihan’s pay increased 73 per cent to $12.1m (£7.8m) in 2012 from the previous year, as the bank gave him a bigger package of stock awards. The second-largest US bank gave Moynihan 926,238 shares of stock in three types of grants, including restricted shares and performance-based shares, according to a [...]
City Moves for 20 February 2013 | Who’s switching jobs February 19, 2013 Broadwalk Asset Management Mark Shepperd will join the asset management firm as a senior analyst. He was most recently a senior adviser in the investment banking division at UBS, and previously spent 20 years running its support services team Scipion The African commodities investment firm has appointed Georgina Fleming to oversee product management and development. [...]
Bottom Line: LinkedIn shows the power of harnessing social media February 19, 2013 LINKEDIN, the social network for professionals, this week ran a fantastically successful social marketing campaign, showing how one social network can harness the power of another to get its message out. To celebrate reaching 200m profiles, LinkedIn sent emails to many of its users congratulating them on being in the top 10 per cent, five [...]
Bancolombia snaps up HSBC Panama assets February 19, 2013 BANCOLOMBIA, Colombia’s largest lender by assets, agreed to purchase HSBC Bank SA Panama for $2.1bn (£1.36bn), the most ever paid by a local bank and the latest in an expansion wave by financial entities into Latin America. The acquisition includes HSBC Panama’s brokerage, fiduciary services unit, banking business and its insurance company, Bancolombia said in [...]
First Capital Connect comes last in passenger satisfaction poll as Virgin retains the top spot February 18, 2013 FIRST Capital Connect delivers the worst train service in Britain, according to a survey of thousands of passengers by consumer group Which?. Virgin retained the top spot in a poll about value, punctuality and reliability, with a satisfaction score of 67 per cent, closely followed by the London Overground and C2C. This compares to just [...]
Man Group shake up begins as Ellis moves in to be president February 18, 2013 EMMANUEL ROMAN, the incoming boss of Man Group, has already begun making changes at the hedge fund ahead of officially taking the reins next week, appointing former colleague Luke Ellis as president of the company amid a raft of changes to the company’s executive leadership. Ellis, a big hitter once tipped to take the top [...]
European Report: Hangover from Carlsberg hits European stock February 18, 2013 EUROPEAN shares dipped for a third straight session yesterday, led by Danish brewer Carlsberg after disappointing earnings, and some analysts expected further weakness in the market in the near term. The world’s fourth-biggest brewer posted a weaker-than-expected quarterly profit as sales stalled in key market Russia and remained sluggish in western Europe, sending its shares [...]
Stansted deal prompts MAG downgrade February 18, 2013 MANCHESTER Airports Group’s purchase of Stansted Airport is on track to close by the end of the month, but the firm was hit by a debt rating downgrade from Standard & Poor’s yesterday. S&P lowered its rating on MAG from A to BBB, repeating its concerns that the £1.5bn purchase will push the group’s debt [...]