Softbank buys US fund manager Fortress for $3.3bn in next step of strategic redirection February 15, 2017 Japanese group Softbank has agreed to buy US fund manager Fortress in a deal worth $3.3bn (£2.6bn), as part of the telecom and technology firm's strategic redirection. Announced overnight, the deal is the first by Softbank into an investment fund and follows the an announcement last October by chief executive and founder Masayoshi Son that the group has [...]
Fresh Tube strike chaos is on the cards after the RMT sets new walkout for next week February 15, 2017 London Underground drivers will be staging a fresh strike next week on parts of the Central Line, the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union announced today. Drivers will walk out from 9pm on Tuesday 21 February until 9pm Wednesday 22 February in industrial action that could also cause disruption to the Waterloo & City line. The [...]
French bank Natixis under investigation over disclosures made in 2007 February 15, 2017 French authorities are formally investigating lender Natixis in relation to statements it made in the run-up to the start of the financial crisis. "Natixis announces that it has today been placed under formal investigation in France, in the context of a magistrate led investigation process opened in 2010 relating to two announcements released in the second [...]
How do you raise funding if your tech startup is not based in London? February 15, 2017 | City Talk London, fintech and money. They're three amigos aren't they? A winning combo of location, sector and investment, affording the best exposure to startup capital and markets. Right? Not quite. Last year, more was invested in UK tech and fintech outside of London than anywhere else in Europe. And thousands of tech firms are finding competitive funding and startup costs outside the [...]
AIG’s share price Trump bump halted by worse than expected losses February 15, 2017 Insurance giant AIG reported a worse than expected quarterly loss of $3bn after having to ramp up reserves to cover possible claims against commercial policies it has already written. The group said it had set aside an additional $5.6bn in its fourth quarter trading statement, published overnight. AIG also revealed plans for a $3.5bn share [...]
Navigating the post-truth world: How businesses can earn trust February 15, 2017 Welcome to the post-truth world. Society has become tribal and echo-chambers shape the way we see reality. There are few trusted facts, only trusted voices. Who is doing the talking has become more important than the things they say. For brands that want to earn trust, that sounds like a Catch-22, but companies can find their [...]
Big Oil is sleepwalking into crisis by underestimating the electric car revolution February 15, 2017 The “disruptive” label is overused. However, the unexpected pace of advancement in clean technology over the past decade has taken many established utility companies by surprise. And despite recent, largely reassuring results from the oil sector, Europe’s utilities provide a potentially prophetic glimpse into its future. In the German city of Hamm, the Westfalen D [...]
A tale of two Eurozones: Greater Germany and Club Med are drifting ever further apart February 15, 2017 At the end of last week Federica Mogherini met leading members of the Trump administration. Mogherini, yet another Italian politician turned Euro-bureaucrat, is in fact the foreign policy chief of the European Union. She stood on her dignity, or rather the dignity of the European Commission, issuing a warning to America not to interfere with [...]
It’s time for diversity at the Bank of England February 15, 2017 The financial crash knocked some of the stuffing out of the economics profession, though you wouldn’t know it given the confidence with which economists still parade their forecasts. A few – especially those with a monetarist or Austrian inclination – publicly expressed concern about policy in 2005-2007, but nobody from the mainstream predicted a financial meltdown. [...]
As his national security adviser resigns over ties to Russia, is Trump’s administration malevolent or just incompetent? February 15, 2017 Dr Joe Devanny, research fellow at the Policy Institute, King’s College London, says Incompetent. Donald Trump has been President of the United States for less than 30 days. We can already say that competence has been in short supply, even by the historical standards of transition processes, which are rarely glitch-free. We have just seen [...]