City’s brightest named in legal hot 100 line-up January 28, 2013 SOME of the City’s top lawyers have been named on the industry’s annual Hot 100 list, including the silk helping Guardian Care Homes pursue Barclays for Libor-related mis-selling and the partner leading Co-op through its bid for Lloyds bank branches. The Lawyer magazine’s 2013 list, released yesterday, singles out 100 legal names to watch this [...]
Coalition adds 299 taxes for 119 that it cut January 28, 2013 DESPITE promising to simplify the UK’s bloated tax system, the coalition government has actually added more taxes than it has removed, according to data released this morning. The coalition has implemented or pencilled in 299 separate tax rises but only 119 tax cuts, the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) said, based on a “forensic study of Treasury [...]
Premier Foods’ shares tumble as chief resigns January 28, 2013 SHARES in the company behind Hovis bread and Mr Kipling cakes tumbled yesterday after its chief executive quit after just 18 months at the helm. Premier Foods said Michael Clarke, who joined from Kraft Foods in September 2011, had indicated to the board over Christmas he was considering moving on “to pursue other business opportunities”. [...]
Clarke got them out of a pickle but all could still come unstuck January 28, 2013 MICHAEL Clarke’s sudden departure from Premier Foods put a dent in its share price yesterday. Justifiably so. Clarke extricated Premier Foods from a pickle – not just ownership of Branston’s and other sweet pickles and sauces, which disposal is due for completion at the start of February, but also by overseeing the £1.4bn restructuring of [...]
Canadians buy landmark City site for £265m January 28, 2013 CANADA’S second largest pension fund has teamed up with private equity firm TPG to buy a landmark office building in the City for £265m. Ivanhoé Cambridge, the property investment arm of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, said yesterday it has jointly bought the Woolgate Exchange in Moorgate as it steps up its investment [...]
City Views | Should the government spend £33bn on high speed two? January 28, 2013 STEPHEN HARRIS ACCOUNTANT AND INSOLVENCY PRACTIONER It is a complete and utter waste of money. You cannot balance the books of the country by ploughing money into black hole infrastructure projects. Not one penny of public money should go into HS2. BRYAN HASLAM NETWORK INTERLINKS Yes. Anything with better connections across the country will be [...]
ITV snaps up £56m South Bank headquarters January 28, 2013 ITV has bought the freehold on its London headquarters for a sum of £56m. The 22-storey tower on the South Bank serves as the broadcaster’s corporate headquarters and hosts shows such as Loose Women. The 2.5-acre London Television Centre was built in the early 1970s and was previously leased to ITV by Coal Pension Properties, [...]
ECB fears banks will dodge new ringfence rules January 28, 2013 EUROPE’S planned ringfence to split up retail and investment banking activities could easily be evaded by banks and need to be based on new rules to avoid this happening, a report from the Eurosystem and European Central Bank (ECB) argued yesterday. The plan, proposed by Finnish central banker Erkki Liikanen, would see the split of [...]
Eurozone’s households and firms wary about borrowing January 28, 2013 LENDING to companies and households in the Eurozone shrank further in December, as borrowers remained cautious about the direction of the currency bloc’s economy. Private sector lending fell 0.7 per cent in December compared to a year ago, after a 0.8 per cent fall during November, figures from the European Central Bank showed. The drop, [...]
Greece scraps short-selling ban as strikes start to end January 28, 2013 GREECE has scrapped its short-selling ban for all but financial stocks. The short-selling ban was introduced in August 2011 to protect investors from the fallout of the debt crisis. It has since been repeatedly extended, with the latest ban expiring on 31 January. Only the short-selling of bank stocks will be extended until 30 April, [...]
