Sparks to fly at Mitchells & Butlers annual meeting January 22, 2012 THE BOARDROOM drama continues at pub group Mitchells & Butlers this week, with all five directors up for re-election at its AGM in Birmingham on Thursday. The AGM follows renewed criticism of the board by Pirc and the Association of British Insurers, which last week raised concerns that M&B is the only FTSE 350 firm [...]
JURY SELECTION BEGINS FOR STANFORD TRIAL January 22, 2012 THE long-awaited trial of Allen Stanford, the Texan financier accused of orchestrating a $7.2bn (£4.6bn) Ponzi scheme, begins today with the selection of the jury. While Stanford was charged in 2009 for Antigua-based fraud operations, he has since remained in custody throughout several postponements of the trial on claims that, due to a prison brawl [...]
Hope for hedge funds as client redemptions fall to a new low January 22, 2012 REDEMPTION requests by hedge fund clients have fallen to the lowest monthly level on record as improving market sentiment combined with a typical seasonal lull in asset re-allocation, data shows. The GlobeOp Forward Redemption Indicator, a monthly snapshot of clients giving notice to withdraw their cash as a percentage of GlobeOp’s assets under administration, measured [...]
Olympic Media Buzz LONDON 2012 PARTNERS January 22, 2012 IN ASSOCIATION with Repskan.com, the media monitoring and analytics platform, City A.M. is measuring the relative Olympic media buzz around the partners for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, week by week. The leaderboard, right, reflects their ranking over the past week, in this case from Wednesday 11 January to Wednesday 18 January. British [...]
Reading will stay prudent, Madejski says January 22, 2012 THE outgoing owner of Reading FC has warned against hopes of a spending spree once he has completed a deal to sell the club to a Russian tycoon. Sir John Madejski is locked in due diligence and expects to finalise a deal with Thames Sports Investment (TSI) by the end of March. Yesterday he claimed [...]
Court case on bonuses starts January 22, 2012 UNLESS a last-minute settlement can be reached, around 100 bankers will this week pitch themselves against Commerzbank, the part state-owned German lender, in a four-week London trial over €52m (£44m) in unpaid bonuses. The row, which returns to court amid increasing public anger over the size of bank payouts, will see Commerzbank chief executive Martin [...]
BAE Systems mulling future of warship business as part of a strategic review January 22, 2012 DEFENCE giant BAE Systems admitted yesterday it was considering the future of its Portsmouth-based warship business, after reports suggested the dockyard could be closed. BAE also owns yards where warships are built at Scotstoun and Govan, both on the river Clyde in Scotland. The Portsmouth site employs around 1,500 workers and the same again in [...]
UAE to liberalise trading in 12 core commodities January 22, 2012 THE United Arab Emirates cabinet said yesterday it would liberalise trade in 12 commodities, saying this would help market stability. “The 12 items that are being liberalised include livestock and dairy products, fats and oils, honey, eggs, fruit juices, salt, yeast, animal feed, detergents and hygiene products,” UAE Economy Minister Sultan bin Saeed al-Mansouri said. [...]
From Russia with love: cash flowing into London January 22, 2012 FROM the King’s Road to Royal Berkshire – football’s Russian revolution looks set to claim another victory this spring when Anton Zingarevich pours his cash into Reading. The Championship side is small in comparison to Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea but it is, at least, very near to London, which remains an affluent market and the spiritual [...]
Zingarevich: from paper millionaire to new Royal blue January 22, 2012 UNTIL the last few days, Anton Zingarevich had barely been heard of in Reading. The Russian is better-known on Merseyside, however, after he came close to taking a 40 per cent stake in Everton in 2004. The deal, through Fortress Sports Fund, never materialised, despite Toffees chairman Bill Kenwright hailing Zingarevich’s “encyclopaedic football knowledge”. Reading [...]