LAST DANCE FOR EMI AS DEAL DIES March 31, 2010 PRIVATE equity billionaire Guy Hands is racing to develop a rescue plan for EMI, the hugely indebted record label, after eleventh-hour talks over a deal with?Universal Music and Sony collapsed. EMI was set to breach its covenants on more than £3bn of loans with Citigroup yesterday. Hands, who owns the company through his Terra Firma [...]
Gartmore owns up to links with FSA suspect March 31, 2010 TROUBLED Gartmore, whose shares have tumbled as a result of its decision to suspend a star trader, yesterday confirmed to shareholders that Clive Roberts, an equities sales trader arrested last week on suspicion of insider trading, did a lot of business with the firm. In a statement issued to shareholders, Gartmore said: “Clive Roberts was [...]
Ofcom cuts Premier footy prices March 31, 2010 MEDIA regulator Ofcom has slashed the price BSkyB can charge its rivals to screen its sports packages. It cut the wholesale price for Sky Sports 1 by 24 per cent to £10.63 a month. It means rivals BT and Virgin will be able to undercut Sky and chip away at its vast 9.5m subscriber base. [...]
City: Tory tax cut is right… March 31, 2010 GEORGE Osborne’s plan to cut National Insurance has been broadly welcomed by our reader panel, although most think he should have gone further. The City A.M./PHI Panel, which has been specially recruited with PoliticsHome.com to represent a cross-section of London’s financial and business community, was asked to judge Osborne’s pledge. Osborne has said he will [...]
FSA right to probe – but care needed March 31, 2010 FOR everybody’s sake, let us hope the Financial Services Authority knows what it is doing. Its massive insider trading raids have certainly shaken up the City – wherever one goes in the Square Mile, in Canary Wharf and in Mayfair, people are talking about the probe. This was exactly what the FSA wanted to achieve: [...]
…and FTSE chiefs agree March 31, 2010 THE top dogs of Britain’s business community have backed Conservative plans to reverse National Insurance rises for those earning less than £45,000. In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, they said Labour’s 1p in the pound rise in April had come at the wrong time and could result in heavy job losses. The 23 signatories [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 31, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES BARRISTER’S EX-WIFE WINS PAYOUT AFTER 25 YEARS A leading barrister has been ordered to pay his former wife a lump sum of £215,000 – 25 years after they divorced. David Vaughan QC, an expert in European law, had been been paying his former wife Philippa an annual sum of £27,175. But in November [...]
Tories are six points ahead March 31, 2010 Last night’s YouGov poll for the Sun saw the Conservative lead unchanged at 38 per cent, with Labour gaining one point to 32 per cent and the Liberal Democrats unchanged at 19 per cent. Since last week’s Budget, the Conservatives have remained consistently six or seven points ahead of Labour.
Credit Suisse bumper bonus plan March 31, 2010 Credit Suisse Group AG stoked debate on executive pay in Switzerland yesterday by awarding chiefeExecutive Brady Dougan shares worth around 71m Swiss francs under a five-year bonus plan. Almost 400 of its executives and other managers are now set toreceive shares worth a total of over 3bn francs under the incentive plan, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank [...]
Gartmore in bid to limit probe fall-out March 31, 2010 EMBATTLED fund manager Gartmore yesterday embarked on a charm offensive in a bid to calm investors worried about allegations levelled against its star trader. Gartmore is desperate to arrest the decline in its share price and ensure its clients do not switch their funds to another firm. It met with investors yesterday to try to [...]
