There isn’t any debate: Voters want openness January 25, 2012 THIS bar stool observation from a stranger on Monday evening may well have nailed it. “I’d like to see Mitt Romney as my president, but I’d love to see Newt Gingrich debate Barack Obama.” Gingrich has something the Republican base values – combativeness, as well as a veneer of near-invincibility on the stage before a [...]
RAPID RESPONSES January 25, 2012 Reduce naked risk Jamie Whyte’s proposal for amending bankers’ pay structure [Strippers can show us bankers’ just rewards, yesterday] is certainly worth consideration but needs further refinement. In Whyte’s model the bank is still subject to losing large amounts of capital at the hands of its trader, whereas Stringfellow faces no such capital risk with [...]
Bury bonds in tax-efficient Isas to avoid digging deep January 25, 2012 HIDDEN among the carnage following the implosion of Lehman Brothers in 2008 lay an opportunity to profit from corporate bonds. And for those who weren’t busy stocking up on water, guns and canned food, corporate bond funds have proved an invaluable hedge against volatile and broadly weak equity returns and inflation’s creeping decimation of their [...]
How we’ll waste our time this year January 25, 2012 SONY PLAYSTATION VITA Expected: 24 February Price: £280 with 3G Sony’s long-awaited portable console is almost upon us. We now know it features both a touch-screen (expected) and an innovative touch-sensitive rear (similar to the one that failed to materialise on the iPhone 4), meaning you can control the system with swipes of your finger [...]
Please wake me up when Apple does something wrong January 25, 2012 Bouncing a ball against a wall is fun. Doing it a hundred times is still fun. But bouncing the same ball against the same wall for years on end can get a little repetitive. Finding creative ways to dress up the words “Apple,” “record” and “profits” is like bouncing that ball. For a long time [...]
Project Beetle ends in tears for hedge fund manager and City banker January 25, 2012 Project Beetle was the name used for a £350m fund-raising in 2009 that made a critical reduction in Punch Taverns’ £4bn debt pile. Those who worked on the ultimately successful transaction, which included bankers from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs, and lawyers from Slaughter & May, had every reason to celebrate the [...]
Punch deal at centre of FSA probe January 25, 2012 Events leading up to a critical £375m fund-raising for Punch Taverns in June 2009 are at the centre of a Financial Services Authority (FSA) investigation which recently led to investment banker Andrew Osborne’s departure from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, City A.M. has learnt. Osborne found himself in trouble after investigators listened to tapes of [...]
Hedge fund managers rush to set up new firms January 25, 2012 Several high-profile hedge fund managers are attempting to set up their own firms, despite a year of underperformance for the industry. Managers including ex-Gartmore employee Guillaume Rambourg, former Barclays Capital commodities trader Todd Edgar and Sutesh Sharma, a senior proprietary trader at Citi are amongst those trying to raise capital for new businesses. The launch [...]
UK factory orders shrink at slower pace January 25, 2012 Factory orders shrank at a slower pace in January than forecast, the CBI’s industrial trends survey showed on Wednesday. The Confederation of British Industry survey’s total order book balance rose to -16 this month from -23 in December, above expectations of a reading of -20. “The crisis in the euro zone is still hanging over [...]
FTSE flat as UK recession looms January 25, 2012 The FTSE 100 was flat after optimism from strong results from Apple in the US fell away with GDP data showing that Britain is on the brink of recession. Later today the Fed will announce its interest rate decision after the European markets close, with no change expected to the US central bank’s 0.25 per [...]
