Boris retains poll lead in latest vote April 16, 2012 BORIS Johnson remains on track to win a second term in office, according to the latest mayoral poll by YouGov. The survey of more than a thousand Londoners suggests that the Conservative candidate is on track to win 45 per cent of first preference votes, against Ken Livingstone’s 40 per cent. After second preferences are [...]
GDF to snap up International Power for £6bn April 16, 2012 GDF Suez yesterday agreed to pay £6.4bn to take full control of International Power. GDF already owns 70 per cent of the company but has been pursuing the remaining 30 per cent. The 418p per share offer, at a seven per cent premium to an earlier approach by GDF, values International Power at about £22.3bn. [...]
Bank of America Merrill Lynch plays down impact of the Orcel brothers’ poaching April 16, 2012 THE departure of star banker Andrea Orcel from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) was never going to be friendly but few expected a full-blooded feud, which is what appears to have broken out. After 20 years at the US investment bank, Orcel’s decision to move to UBS warranted only a few words in an [...]
ADVISERS BARCLAYS CAPITAL April 16, 2012 Matthew Ponsonby, co-head of mergers and acquisitions for Europe, the Middle East and Africa is one of the key players on the team advising International Power (IP). The bank hired Ponsonby in 2009 to set up an M&A team in Europe, and he has since led a team advising car rental company Avis Europe on [...]
Moulton buys Jaeger despite UK retail woes April 16, 2012 JON Moulton has admitted his concern over the health of Britain’s high street despite making a £19.5m swoop on Jaeger, the upmarket fashion chain set up nearly 130 years ago. The private equity veteran told City A.M. it is “almost inconceivable” that he will not close some of Jaeger’s 50 stores and 90 concessions after [...]
City workers reject quotas as way to get women on boards April 16, 2012 ALMOST three-quarters of employees in investment banking and hedge funds do not think there should be quotas to help women onto corporate boards, research claimed yesterday. Seventy-two per cent of financial services staff polled by recruiter Astbury Marsden said that quotas were unnecessary – rising to 76 per cent when they were asked more specifically [...]
Anthony Bolton vows to stay on with troubled China fund April 16, 2012 STAR fund manager Anthony Bolton has vowed to continue running the £521m Fidelity China Special Situations trust for two more years in a bid to reverse its dramatic slump. Yesterday Fidelity said Bolton would stay an extra year beyond that already agreed, until at least April 2014. The veteran manager said the performance of the [...]
Charles Schwab profits tumble by 20 per cent April 16, 2012 CHARLES Schwab, one of the largest US brokerages, reported a 20 per cent drop in quarterly profit yesterday, as expected, due in part to lower asset management fees and higher expenses, but said its outlook was improving. Schwab earned $195m (£122.6m) in the quarter ended 31 March, meeting Wall Street expectations. Asset management fees were [...]
Wall Street should hold off on the champagne for now April 16, 2012 ON first glance, it’s rather hard to find the good news among all the negative numbers in Citigroup’s latest batch of figures. Headline profits and revenues fell slightly and yet the bank’s share price rose 1.8 per cent yesterday, adding around $1.8bn to its value. The rise is a sign that markets think that normality [...]
Goldman reduces stake in ICBC through share sale to Temasek April 16, 2012 SINGAPORE state investor Temasek bought $2.3bn (£1.4bn) worth of ICBC’s Hong Kong-listed shares from seller Goldman Sachs yesterday, piling into three of China’s top four banks and raising its bet on the world’s second-biggest economy. Temasek was burned by its financial industry exposure in 2008, hit by stakes in large European and US banks that [...]
