Give yourself an edge in a tight job market March 7, 2012 NEW JOBS in banking and finance are not easy to find. Last week, Morgan McKinley released figures showing that the number of newly-open positions fell by 47 per cent in the year to February 2012. For the past four years, large numbers of candidates have pursued a persistently small number of jobs. The market for [...]
John Lewis cuts staff bonus as profit falls March 7, 2012 Britain’s biggest department store group John Lewis cut its staff bonus for the first time in three years and posted a 3.8 per cent fall in year profit, showing even the firm’s affluent customer base is not immune to straitened times. The 148-year-old employee-owned group, whose stakeholder business model has been lauded by politicians including [...]
FTSE resilient despite Greek deal fears March 7, 2012 The FTSE 100 proved resilient this morning as strong corporate results shored up the index despite falls on other markets across the globe. European shares overall steadied after two straight days of losses as investors braced for news on whether Greece would succeed in restructuring its huge debt pile. The Greek bond swap deal must [...]
Six charged over Olympus scandal March 7, 2012 Tokyo prosecutors on Wednesday charged Olympus Corp and six key figures in the $1.7bn (£1.1bn) accounting fraud at the camera and endoscope maker, tightening their case in the investigation of one of Japan’s biggest corporate scandals. Prosecutors charged ex-chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, former executive vice-president Hisashi Mori and former auditor Hideo Yamada with inflating the company’s [...]
NAB ‘to sell off UK assets’ March 7, 2012 National Australia Bank is likely to position its UK bank assets for sale after separating off its troubled commercial real-estate business at the end of an ongoing review of its UK operations, sources told Reuters. The result of the review is due in May, and it is still classified within NAB as an operational review [...]
Admiral profit rise fuelled by UK growth March 7, 2012 Motor insurer Admiral said its 2011 profit rose by a better-than-expected 13 percent, with continued strong growth in customer numbers in the UK outweighing a wider loss at its fledgling international operations. Admiral, which insures one in ten cars on Britain’s roads, made a pre-tax profit of £299m last year, it said on Wednesday, up [...]
HSBC sells insurance business for £518m March 7, 2012 HSBC has agreed to sell its general insurance businesses to French insurer AXA Group and Australia’s QBE Insurance Group for £581m in cash, as Europe’s biggest bank moves ahead with its plan to divest non-core assets. The deal, the latest in a series of cost cutting initiatives under new HSBC CEO Stuart Gulliver, includes 10-year [...]
Brazil’s economy overtakes the UK March 6, 2012 BRAZIL’S economy is now bigger than the UK’s, making it the second emerging market to enter the top-tier of world economies and heralding the beginning of the end of Western economic dominance. Britain’s star is fading fast – the country now has the seventh biggest economy in the world, down from fourth in 2005, thanks [...]
Banks: stop FSA’s block on credit March 6, 2012 BANKS have hit out at the City watchdog for introducing new rules that are crippling the flow of credit to small firms, according to a secret document seen by City A.M. In a sign of frustration at the FSA’s hyper-strict regime, banks have called on a special government taskforce to intervene and curb what they [...]
Greek nerves dent markets March 6, 2012 PRE-BAILOUT nerves set global markets tumbling yesterday, as investors fretted about the prospect of Greece’s looming bond swap failing as well as the broader health of the Eurozone’s economy. The FTSE 100 lost 1.9 per cent to close at 5,765.80 points yesterday, suffering its biggest one-day fall in nearly three months, while Paris’s CAC 40 [...]