Miliband: Give unions pay roles June 15, 2010 David Miliband, the favourite runner for the Labour Party leadership, has written a provocative blog post suggesting union leaders should be given seats on companies’ remuneration committees in a bid to curb excessive pay deals. Miliband, who is up against his brother Ed, Diane Abbott, Ed Balls and Andy Burnham for the top Labour job, [...]
Osborne set to confirm plan for bank levy June 15, 2010 GEORGE Osborne will confirm plans to introduce a banking levy when he delivers his inaugural Mansion House Speech tonight. The chancellor will tell banks he is prepared to impose a tax on the industry even if other countries refuse to follow suit. Although he is not expected to flesh out the full details of the [...]
BCC backs our CGT campaign June 15, 2010 A LEADING business lobby group yesterday backed City A.M.’s campaign against damaging government proposals to raise capital gains tax (CGT) to levels in line with income tax. The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said that business prosperity would suffer if the coalition does not introduce taper relief, indexation or entrepreneurial relief along with the changes, [...]
Jupiter valued at £750m as bankers fill IPO book June 15, 2010 BANKERS covered the book on Jupiter Asset Management’s initial public offering (IPO) last night, but were forced to price the float towards the lower end of their expected range. The fund management boutique is this morning expected to confirm it will join the public arena at around 165p per share, valuing the company at £750m. [...]
OFT will not control loan rates June 15, 2010 The Office of Fair Trading has said it will not recommend price controls on expensive forms of short-term borrowing, such as payday loans. The watchdog has been scrutinising immediately available credit since last July, and said although such financing came at high rates, it met a need for a demographic who could otherwise not borrow [...]
Consumer confidence clouded June 15, 2010 The election and the prospect of an emergency budget sent consumer confidence plummeting to its lowest level in almost a year in May, according to a survey by Nationwide Building Society. Nationwide’s consumer confidence index fell to 65 in May, the lowest reading since June last year, from an upwardly revised reading of 75 in [...]
Walmart grows banking share June 15, 2010 Walmart, the US retail behemoth, has taken an equity stake in rapidly growing financial company Green Dot. In a significant move for both companies, Green Dot, which provides support for Walmart’s pre-paid cards, said it had issued 2m shares to the shopping centre group following an agreement in May that extended the existing alliance between [...]
Sky tells News Corp to raise its £12bn bid June 15, 2010 BSKYB yesterday told Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation it has to stump up at least £1bn more if it wants to buy the Pay-TV broadcaster. News Corp tabled a 700p a share, which values Sky at around £12.25bn, to buy the 60.9 per cent of Sky it does not already own. But yesterday Sky’s independent directors, [...]
The top team must drive a hard bargain with News Corporation June 15, 2010 THE eight independent directors charged with looking after interests of BSkyB shareholders are an experienced stellar bunch. But the group will come under scrutiny because they may be perceived as being too close to News Corporation head Rupert Murdoch who was chairman of Sky until 2007, and was replaced by his son James. The gang [...]
US releases BP emails June 15, 2010 BP is reeling from a fresh PR disaster after US Congressional investigators released a string of damaging emails predating the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig. Confidential messages exchanged by BP executives in the days before the Gulf of Mexico disaster showed the oil major was “horribly negligent” in its approach to safety aboard the [...]
