RBS pay restrictions lead to loss of talented staff to competitors July 19, 2009 ROYAL Bank of Scotland has lost more than 700 of its top investment bankers to rivals as it labours under government restrictions on compensation policy. The bank cannot pay cash bonuses this year as a result of the government bailout which has left it 70 per cent owned by the Treasury. Rivals are understood to [...]
FULL STEAM AHEAD July 19, 2009 VIRGIN Trains, 51 per cent owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, has reported a 32 per cent surge in the number of bookings so far this year – a 256,000 gain. The West Coast Main Line operator says the pull of designer shopping in Chester had seen the city register a 300 per cent [...]
Sandler new candidate for Lloyds chair July 19, 2009 RON Sandler, the man parachuted in to Northern Rock by the government to turn the stricken mortage lender around, has emerged as a surprise candidate to succeed Sir Victor Blank as chairman of Lloyds Banking Group. The bank, which is 43 per cent owned by the taxpayer, has drawn up a shortlist of names for [...]
Green dreams: a Moon Race for the 21st Century July 19, 2009 FORTY years ago today Neil Armstrong jumped off the ladder of his Eagle landing module as the US finally won the decade long battle with Russia to put the first man on the moon. NASA won, not by luck, but because it put in place a countrywide programme costing over $100bn (£61bn) in today’s money [...]
Bank of Ireland eyes rights issue July 19, 2009 BANK of Ireland is understood to be planning a rights issue in November to buy out some of the government’s indirect 25 per cent stake in the lender. The move could raise the €1.5bn (£1.3bn) necessary to limit the Irish government’s preference shares at 15 per cent, minimising the possibility of majority stake ownership after [...]
One in five jobs cut at Hit firm July 19, 2009 HIT Entertainment, the group that owns the rights to Thomas the Tank Engine and other children cartoon characters, has cut one in five jobs in an attempt to avoid breaching its banking covenants this September. Private equity firm Apax bought the children’s entertainment producer and rights owner in 2005 for around £489m. But the group [...]
Huge change in the City’s roll of power July 19, 2009 A YEAR of financial turmoil has wiped all but a quarter of last year’s 100 most influential people in European financial markets off the current roll of power. This year’s Financial News FN100 listing, which has the highest rate of turnover in its five-year history, reflects the huge overhaul of top talent the credit crunch [...]
Myners to turn back on City over moral concerns July 19, 2009 CITY minister Lord Myners is so disgusted by arrogance and greed in the financial services sector that he will become a theology student rather than return to the City full-time. The minister, who was brought into Gordon Brown’s government as part of a series of “national service” recruitments from the private sector, said there was [...]
PWC BOYS SWAP THEIR DESKS FOR A DASHBOARD AND HIT THE STANS July 19, 2009 AS YOU reluctantly get your engine running on this Monday morning, spare a though for Tom Henry and Simon Todd of Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ London Assurance team who are in the early stages of a long and gruelling 10,000km drive from London to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Because yesterday the PwC team swapped their desks for the dashboard [...]
BILL OF THE WEEK July 19, 2009 Vivat Bacchus London Bridge played host to an accountancy firm holding an out-of-office departmental meeting and celebration on Friday evening, and took the opportunity to pre-launch its upcoming Saturday jazz nights, which officially start this week. The 16 accountants were certainly in the mood for a celebration, quaffing on a jeroboam and two magnums of [...]