Banker bashers rejoice: financiers lose livelihoods September 1, 2011 THERE are two very common misconceptions about the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. In our special feature on pages eight and nine, we demolish the first: that it is business as usual for banks. The second is that very few bankers lost their jobs as a result of the crisis. Nothing could be further [...]
CITY VIEWS: WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO MOVE TO ASIA FOR A JOB OPPORTUNITY? September 1, 2011 TOM KIRKLAND | FSJ BROKING “No, not me personally. The fact that you would have to move away from family would be a hard decision. I also think the different culture and climate would be a tough adjustment.” DAVE PHILLIPS | JRP “For some people it would be a great opportunity if the situation was [...]
Business as usual? Hardly, for anyone working in finance September 1, 2011 SINCE the financial crisis, business secretary Vince Cable has taken to the airways on a regular basis to criticise a supposed culture of business as usual in the City, suggesting that the government must get ever-tougher to counter the fact that hardly anything has changed for banks. Nothing could be further from the truth. HSBC [...]
NEW REGULATION September 1, 2011 • Basel 2.5: The changes to banks’ capital regime introduced over 2009-2010 rejigged the methods that banks must use to calculate the value of their “risk-weighted assets” (RWA) – that is, their total assets adjusted for certain kinds of risk. This shifted banks from a Basel II regime to what the industry calls “Basel 2.5”. [...]
SO WHO’S IN CHARGE OF ENFORCING ALL THESE NEW RULES? September 1, 2011 • European Securites and Markets Authority (ESMA): Europe’s new super-regulator, in charge of the oversight of the region’s securities industry. ESMA can overrule member states if it thinks national regulators are not taking sufficient measures to tackle potential threats to investors. Its executive director Verena Ross is the only senior member of staff at any [...]
Glencore and consortium eye $1bn deal September 1, 2011 SOUTH AFRICA’S Optimum Coal has confirmed a consortium including a unit of commodity trading giant Glencore and prominent local politician-turned-tycoon Cyril Ramaphosa was interested in buying it for about $1bn (£618m). This would be Glencore’s most significant purchase since its record share listing, when it sacrificed its fiercely protected privacy to gain the balance sheet firepower [...]
Hannover Leasing buys £139m City landmark September 1, 2011 FUND manager Hannover Leasing has bought a trophy City office building for £139m. The German firm has bought 30 Crown Place, a 19-storey building near Liverpool Street station, from the Greycoat Central London Office Fund, in a move that underscores a trend for foreign investors flocking to London as a safe haven market. The 198,000 [...]
Hargreaves Lansdown stock soars despite fears over FSA September 1, 2011 SHARES in Hargreaves Lansdown soared yesterday after the wealth manager reported high levels of new business and shrugged off concerns over the regulator’s industry review. Hargreaves stock closed up 17.7 per cent at 508.5p after it said new contracts in July and August were up by a third on last year. Founder Peter Hargreaves told [...]
ANALYSTS: WILL FSA RULES HIT THE STOCK? September 1, 2011 STUART DUNCAN | PEEL HUNT While Hargreaves believes the revenue model could be adapted to meet potential regulatory changes (more explicit charging likely), there is clearly an element of uncertainty on the potential impact. Fundamentally the business continues to perform strongly. JON HOCKING | MORGAN STANLEY We continue to believe that HL should trade at [...]
38,000 households find work in slow recovery September 1, 2011 THE number of households without a single working adult was 38,000 lower in the three months to June, compared to the previous year, as the UK’s labour market improved. Yet there remained 3.88m households without an employed adult, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said yesterday, down from 3.92m in April to June 2010. And [...]
