Charles Stanley: No living wills June 8, 2010 SIR DAVID Howard, the former Lord Mayor and chairman of stockbroker Charles Stanley, yesterday warned that the Treasury’s proposals to introduce “living wills” for financial firms could cost the sector hundreds of millions of pounds in lost profits. Howard said the cost of such a move to Charles Stanley would be around £1m, meaning that [...]
The defence industry boss who is reshaping his firm for new realities September 28, 2010 FOR Cobham’s chief executive Andy Stevens, life is measured out in five-year plans. The head of the FTSE 100 defence company first joined the business in 2003 as head of its aerospace division and played a key role in the 2005 strategic review that “took a root a branch look at our operations and decided [...]
The car insurance boss who wants to motor into new foreign markets August 22, 2010 It is a case of ‘Recession? What recession?’ for motor insurance firm Admiral, which is in the middle of taking on 750 staff in the UK alone this year. And that means an awful lot of meetings for the Cardiff-based firm’s 53-year-old chief executive Henry Engelhardt. The Chicago-born boss meets every one of his new [...]
RPI inflation sees sharpest jump since ‘91 May 18, 2010 NEW chancellor George Osborne yesterday called on the Bank of England to accelerate plans to reintroduce house prices into the benchmark rate of inflation, after the housing-linked index in April recorded its biggest monthly increase in two decades. The consumer price index (CPI) – the official inflation measure which does not currently take housing into [...]
Cameron to defend UK fiscal squeeze at summit June 25, 2010 David Cameron has defended Britain’s decision to implement the biggest fiscal squeeze in a generation as G20 leaders prepared to meet in Canada to discuss the global economy. Last year’s G20 unity on the need for coordinated action to support the world economy has started to falter as the recovery has got under way. Ahead [...]
Greedy Greece may have gulped all euro help May 3, 2010 CRISIS averted? For now, troubled Greece has been saved – but at what cost? The sums involved are staggering and could have been much lower if the Eurozone’s governments had appreciated the size and scale of the problem earlier and learned the lessons of history. By waiting for the 11th hour to agree a rescue [...]
The late-night bank manager is planning a High Street revolution August 8, 2010 THE revolution in High Street banking has begun. That’s the bold claim of Craig Donaldson, chief executive of Metro Bank, the first addition to Britain’s retail banking scene in 100 years. And ground zero is the corner of High Holborn and Southampton Row, where its inaugural branch opened a couple of weeks ago. “The revolution has [...]
Markets fear Greek disaster May 5, 2010 FEARS Greece’s debt crisis could spread to other countries continued to hit markets yesterday fuelled by a threat by Moody’s rating agency that it may downgrade Portugal. The FTSE 100 crashed 1.3 per cent, while the euro plummeted to $1.2801 – its weakest level against the dollar since March 2009. The cost of insuring Spanish [...]
The City must stop talent trickling overseas May 20, 2010 CONFIRMATION that the UK is slipping down the list of the world’s most competitive countries comes as no surprise but is a situation that surely must be remedied before irreparable damage is done to our economy. The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook identified the UK as falling one place to 22nd in the world rankings. Bearing [...]
UK should brace itself for austerity May 5, 2010 RESEARCH DIRECTOR, FOREX.COM OVER the next few months the British electorate will wake up to the reality of what it means to live in a country with a budget deficit of £163bn. The bleak truth is that few will be immune to the tax hikes and spending cuts that will inevitably hit over the next [...]