US web ad firm to raise £12.5m in London IPO February 4, 2013 A US online advertising company will today announce plans to raise up to £12.5m on London’s Alternative Investment Market (Aim) as a springboard for expansion into Europe. Digital Global Services (DGS), which buys advertising space on search engines and Facebook for telecoms companies, is looking to float in mid-February despite not yet having a presence [...]
Osborne bashes banks February 3, 2013 THE GOVERNMENT is undermining banks’ stability and hitting lending to businesses and households by threatening to break up the institutions, banks warned last night. Chancellor George Osborne will today announce his plan to electrify the ring fence that will sit between banks’ retail and investment operations. Under the proposal, banks that try to dodge this [...]
Barclays shake-up February 3, 2013 New Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins is looking for a new finance director following the departure of Chris Lucas, the bank said yesterday.
Barclays finance director announces his departure February 3, 2013 BARCLAYS finance director Chris Lucas is to announce his resignation today, the bank has revealed, continuing the clear-out of top executives since the Libor interest rate manipulation scandal broke last summer. General counsel Mark Harding is also leaving the bank. The resignations come just days after it emerged the authorities are investigating a 2008 fundraising [...]
City boosted by early year jobs pick-up February 3, 2013 CITY hiring jumped sharply last month, rebounding from record lows recorded in December and hinting there may be some hope that the pressures on financial services firms are easing a touch, according to new data out today. A total of 2,509 jobs were created in January, recruiters Astbury Marsden report today, more than three times [...]
Sweeping changes from new broom February 3, 2013 WHETHER or not the departures of Chris Lucas and Mark Harding from Barclays are related to any ongoing investigations (and the bank is very keen to point out that they’re definitely entirely separate), the pair were notably among a dwindling number of executives to remain from the era of the bank’s swashbuckling former chief executive [...]
What the other papers say this morning February 3, 2013 FINANCIAL TIMES London skyscraper faces downgrade The Pinnacle – the partly built skyscraper that was planned as the tallest in the City of London – could be knocked down and built from scratch. With work started on just seven of the planned 63 storeys and progress stalled for more than a year, the developers are [...]
Mobile giant in plan to float on London market February 3, 2013 THE OWNER of the Orange and T-Mobile phone networks is planning an end-of-year initial public offering that could be London’s biggest stock market listing in over two years. EE, formerly known as Everything Everywhere, is being prepared for a listing that would raise billions for its owners, France Telecom (FT) and Deutsche Telekom (DT). Everything [...]
RBS looks to IPO 316 branches as rival bidders offer too little February 3, 2013 RBS is set to float 316 branches as an independent bank after failing to get any attractive bids from smaller banks or private equity buyers, it emerged yesterday. The bank is being forced to sell the branches, which come with 1.8m customers and 250,000 small business accounts, by the European Commission as part of its [...]
Super Bowl advertisements hit record prices in age of YouTube February 3, 2013 ADVERTS at this year’s Super Bowl have hit record prices, with the price of a 30-second advertisement at the event reaching an average of $3.8m (£2.4m). Companies including Samsung, Budweiser and Coca-Cola have paid US television network CBS around nine per cent more than they did last year for the event, which was broadcast last [...]