Temasek unveils 17bn loss July 29, 2009 Singapore state investor Temasek revealed yesterday that the value of its portfolio slid by at least $27bn (£16.5bn), or more than a fifth, in the 12 months ending in March. But the sovereign wealth fund, which made an estimated loss of £800m when it sold its stake in Barclays earlier this year, said it will [...]
Branson and sheikh go for final frontier July 28, 2009 VIRGIN Galactic’s space flight business is selling a $280m (£170m) stake to Manchester City football club’s Middle Eastern owner. Sir Richard Branson will sell 32 per cent of the company to Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who last month made a £1.5bn profit selling shares in Barclays. Branson aims to have commercial space flights running [...]
PWC BOARD GET THE X-FACTOR TREATMENT IN SURPRISE CONTEST July 28, 2009 RECENT surveys have shown that employees’ sense of job security has improved in recent months, but it seems it is now so high that poking fun at the board is back in vogue. The PwC board were half way through a three-week UK tour last week – in which they met 850 partners – when [...]
Falls in mining and energy halt FTSE’s winning streak July 28, 2009 THE FTSE 100’s two-week winning streak finally came to an end yesterday, with the benchmark index closing 1.3 per cent down on the day. The blue chip index had looked set to put in another consecutive day’s gain in earlier trading, but profit taking in mining and energy stocks dragged it lower. The FTSE 100 [...]
WOMEN LAWYERS IN THE CITY July 28, 2009 CLARE MCCONNELLPARTNER, STEPHENSON HARWOOD AND CHAIR, ASSOC OF WOMEN SOLICITORS SURVEYS continue to show that the progress of women lawyers in the profession, and into partnership, has stalled. Even in the 21st century it is still true that women shoulder the majority of the responsibility for childcare or care of other dependants even when they [...]
UK stocks keep on rallying buoyed by energy climbers July 27, 2009 BUOYANT energy stocks and miners helped Britain’s top share index rise for a record-equalling 11th straight session, though gains were limited by falls on Wall Street after corporate earnings disappointed. The FTSE 100 was up 9.52 points, or 0.2 per cent at 4,586.13, hitting its highest closing level since 5 January. The index has risen [...]
Hypocrisy at the heart of banking policy July 27, 2009 PATHETIC. That is the only way to describe Alistair Darling’s ridiculous, stage-managed, utterly fake “row” with Britain’s top banks yesterday. It is the mark of a desperate, dying government that it feels obliged to resort to such a ridiculous piece of make-believe, rather than engaging in proper policy-making. To demand of the banks that they [...]
BarCap expands Japanese arm July 26, 2009 Barclays Capital (BarCap) has beefed up its Japanese operations, adding around 200 staff ahead of a possible move to larger headquarters in Tokyo. The increased headcount is part of BarCap’s efforts to generate 50 per cent of revenue from outside the UK. Eiji Nakai, chief executive of BarCap in Tokyo said: “To be truly global [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS July 22, 2009 MercerThe consulting and outsourcing business has appointed Monica Santiago as head of its health and benefits business in the UK. Santiago was previously chief operating officer for Mercer’s health and benefits business in Europe and, prior to that, was business leader for Portugal. She takes over her new London-based role from David Levey, who becomes [...]
MPC stands united on QE July 22, 2009 IT WAS a unanimous vote from the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to hold interest rates and keep quantitative easing (QE) at the current level of £125bn, minutes from the July meeting showed yesterday. The minutes of the 8-9 July meeting indicated that while the extension of QE was the central question for [...]