Lloyds gets rid of half its holding in Thomas Cook November 23, 2011 THOMAS COOK’S largest stakeholder has ditched almost half of its shares, a day after the crisis-hit tour operator asked its bank lenders to come to its rescue for the second time in five weeks. Lloyds Banking Group sold around £4m worth of shares, shrinking its stake in the company from 8.96 to 4.67 per cent, [...]
Tata names Mistry as its new chairman November 23, 2011 LONDON-educated Cyrus Mistry has been named as the new boss of Tata Sons, the Indian owners of Jaguar Landrover. The 43-year-old construction tycoon will become chairman of the Indian conglomerate when Ratan Tata retires next December. His appointment is likely to cheer Tata’s 50,000 UK workers – in firms including Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Steel [...]
Dexia rescue fears spark stocks slump November 23, 2011 EUROPEAN banking stocks were spooked yesterday over fears the €90bn (£77bn) deal to rescue Franco-Belgian bank Dexia could be about to unravel. Financial stocks fell in Britain, France and Belgium after a report that Paris and Brussels were at loggerheads over short-term funding guarantees designed to allow Dexia’s “bad bank” to come off emergency liquidity [...]
Eurobonds would ease crisis: EC November 23, 2011 “STABILITY bonds” backed by the Eurozone as a whole could be one solution to the sovereign debt crises, European Commission (EC) president Jose Manuel Barroso said yesterday. Such a commitment from member states would show that “we are serious about stronger governance in the euro area, both in discipline and in convergence”, he said. German [...]
CITY VIEWS: HOW IMPORTANT IS TOURISM TO THE LONDON ECONOMY? November 23, 2011 DAVID WHITE | MIZUHO “It’s very important, because everything else in the economy is a bit of a state. I think it should be interesting enough to attract people without the government promoting it, though.” MICHAEL PORTER | DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS “There is big money there, billions. It may get crowded, and public transport may [...]
NBNK and Co-op in final round of Lloyds auction November 23, 2011 NEW British bank venture NBNK and the mutually owned Co-operative Group have been short-listed by Lloyds as prospective buyers of the 630 retail bank branches which it has been told to sell, sources with knowledge of the situation said. Lloyds said yesterday that it had received three formal offers for the assets and had decided [...]
Nigel Lawson contradicts chancellor by calling for a break up of Eurozone November 23, 2011 FORMER Tory chancellor Nigel Lawson has clashed with current Number 11 inhabitant George Osborne, by labelling plans to preserve the Eurozone as “mad”. Osborne has encouraged the 17 member states of the Eurozone to push forward with plans for greater fiscal integration, yet his predecessor has slammed the idea. “It was the Eurozone that caused [...]
Ireland calls for discount on debts to aid recovery November 23, 2011 IRELAND yesterday called on the EU to provide it with debt relief, arguing that the country had shouldered a disproportionate burden within the Eurozone during earlier crises. Finance minister Michael Noonan told journalists: “We have borne a disproportionate share of protecting the European banking system… The overall burden of debt is going to impede growth.” [...]
HSBC: Vickers is biggest cost of London HQ November 23, 2011 THE VICKERS report is the single biggest factor making the UK a less attractive financial centre than it was in the past, according to HSBC chairman Douglas Flint. Appearing before a committee of MPs, Flint said that the bank’s $2.1bn (£1.35bn) estimate of the annual costs from one single measure in the Vickers report would [...]
Blow for RBS as its head of retail banking leaves November 23, 2011 ANOTHER senior executive joined the management exodus from taxpayer-owned banks yesterday as RBS’s head of retail unexpectedly quit. Brian Hartzer, who also runs the bank’s wealth division and its troubled Irish business, Ulster Bank, is leaving the bank for family reasons to move back to Australia and take up a similar job, the bank said. [...]
