Walkie-Talkie tower bags fifth tenant February 25, 2013 CANARY WHARF Group and Land Securities’ Walkie-Talkie skyscraper at 20 Fenchurch Street is now 53 per cent let after the developers confirmed yesterday that US insurer Liberty Mutual is to take up 117,336 square feet of office space. Markel, Kiln, RSA and Ascott Underwriting have also pre-let space in the 160-metre tall building.
City Moves for 26 February 2013 | Who’s switching jobs February 25, 2013 Co-operative Group The mutual business has announced the appointment of Rebecca Skitt as human resources director. Skitt has over 20 years’ experience, most recently as head of human resources in Barclays’ global retail and business banking division. She has also held senior roles at Unilever. Jones Day Karim Mahmud has joined the law firm as [...]
O2 finance boss left in the dark over 4G auction February 25, 2013 THERE were billions of pounds at stake as O2 went up against Vodafone and EE in the recent auction of the 4G mobile spectrum. Therefore one would expect that O2’s chief financial officer would be keeping a keen eye on the purse strings during the proceedings. However, as the company’s management spent a tense January [...]
Top spin doctors’ PR firm hit by defections over owner strategy February 25, 2013 SIGNS of exodus yesterday at M Communications, the top flight financial public relations agency founded by City veterans Nick Miles and Hugh Morrison. According to insiders, five senior people handed in their resignations, unhappy about the way the agency’s profits are being distributed. Insiders told The Capitalist last night that M, with annual revenues of [...]
Best of the Brokers February 25, 2013 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com BREWIN DOLPHIN Canaccord Genuity has raised its rating on the asset manager to “buy” and boosted its target price to 230p. The broker thinks Brewin delivers a high cash return on invested capital and maintains a good momentum, and sees earnings and the [...]
Moody’s blues already anticipated by markets February 25, 2013 The loss of the UK’s AAA has shocked nobody WHEN Moody’s stripped the UK of its AAA rating on Friday, few were surprised. It is a move that the markets had been anticipating for months, and the lack of any significant market reaction shows just how much the decision had already been priced in. From [...]
The Tipster | Safe as housebuilders February 25, 2013 WHILE revenues are likely to be flat, traders expect Barratt Developments to report improvements in its margins tomorrow, which should help to boost profit levels. But the property developer’s shares have surged by nearly 70 per cent over the last year, leading some to declare that most of the good news is already priced in. Capital [...]
View from the City – It’s a bad time to sell off RBS stake February 25, 2013 WHILE you are ruminating over the content of today’s City A.M., earnings results from RBS on Thursday and Lloyds Banking Group on Friday will be approaching the top of the financial agenda. Although the “Black Horse”, was first to admit to wholesale miss-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI), it seems that it will be easier [...]
Don’t sneer at big bank bonuses February 25, 2013 CNBC COMMENT IT’S confession time. I had a major “senior moment” last week when, not for the first time, I completely misunderstood a piece of eminent academic research. The piece in question was about banker pay. Brilliant, I thought, here’s a piece of hard research that confirms that bankers are still making and generating vast [...]
Osborne faces Commons rating humiliation February 25, 2013 During an urgent question on the government's economic policy George Osborne was asked whether he agreed with himself that the UK downgrade is "humiliating". While he rightly pointed out that markets didn't react to the downgrade, that doesn't absolve him of responsibility for the economic conditions that led to it. Despite having set the AAA [...]