Cattles axes seven more executives July 1, 2009 DOORSTEP lender Cattles has launched a boardroom bloodbath, axing seven executives linked to a “breakdown in internal controls”. Finance director James Corr, chief operating officer and chairman of credit division Welcome Financial Services Ian Cummine and another unnamed senior executive of Welcome all had their contracts terminated after the review by law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus [...]
Finsbury boss Rudd quits as WH Ireland director July 1, 2009 ROLAND Rudd, the boss of City PR outfit Finsbury, has resigned as a non-executive director of City stockbroker WH Ireland, citing “other work commitments”. Rudd joined the board last year as part of a consortium that bought a 26 per cent stake in WH Ireland. Former Conservative Party treasurer Lord Marland, Carphone Warehouse co-founder David [...]
Avanti in 31.5m fundraising July 1, 2009 AVANTI Communications, the Aim-listed satellite operator, yesterday announced a £31.5m share placing as it revealed that its year-end results would beat expectations. The group said the new money will fund the upgrade of the technical hardware for the launch of its HYLAS satellite. HYLAS will be the first superfast broadband satellite to be launched in [...]
Credit Suisse in funds sale to Aberdeen July 1, 2009 ABERDEEN Asset Management announced the completion of a deal to buy a number of funds from Credit Suisse yesterday and said its assets under management would rise by £36.4bn as a result. The transaction, which will create the UK’s largest listed fund manager, sees Aberdeen hand 207.5m shares to Credit Suisse for its UK, US, [...]
DSB fined over bad advice July 1, 2009 The Dutch market regulator has fined privately held DSB Bank for excessive lending practices and giving bad client advice during a period when former finance minister Gerrit Zalm was its financial chief. Market regulator AFM said in a statement that it had fined DSB €120,000 (£103,800) for the infractions, which took place in 2008. An [...]
UBS predicts Spanish bank woes July 1, 2009 Spanish banks are still to feel the full impact of the financial crisis, UBS said yesterday, warning that asset deterioration would hit the country’s lenders hard. “We expect earnings for Spanish banks to fall by 15 per cent this year and 25 per cent next year and to only start to recover in 2012,” UBS [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: IS THIS THE START OF A RECOVERY FOR M&S? July 1, 2009 NICK BUBB PALI INTERNATIONALWeak comparatives may well be making like-for-like sales look less bad, but gross margins and profits are still falling and there is no disguising the structural or management problems that M&S faces, so we suspect we are not going to hear “game, set and match to Stuart Rose” in the near future. [...]
BA calls in Acas to avert strike action July 1, 2009 BRITISH AIRWAYS (BA) said it asked the conciliation service Acas to intervene in a bid to reach a deal with unions on jobs and pay yesterday. Talks between BA and the Unite and GMB unions aimed at agreeing a series of cost-cutting measures including a pay freeze and more than 3,500 job losses broke up [...]
M&S has best performance in two years July 1, 2009 MARKS & SPENCER (M&S) said yesterday that its 125th anniversary celebrations, a late Easter and the arrival of summer had all helped drive it to the best quarterly performance in nearly two years. M&S reported a drop in UK like-for-like sales of 1.7 per cent for the first quarter, ending 27 June, compared to a [...]
Banks’ leverage needs limits July 1, 2009 MUCH stricter system-wide limits on banks’ leverage are needed, the Bank of England’s executive director for financial stability Andrew Haldane said yesterday. “These ratios will need to be state-dependent, rising as the temperature rises across the financial system as a whole.” Haldane stressed there is a need for more focus on returns on assets rather [...]
