CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS April 22, 2012 Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer Alan Ryan has been appointed global co-head of the law firm’s infrastructure and transport sector group. Ryan succeeds finance partner Nick Bliss in the position on 1 May. He will work alongside current infrastructure and transport sector co-head Nils Koffka. Berwin Leighton Paisner The law firm has announced that Robert MacGregor has [...]
BEST of the BROKERS April 22, 2012 MEGGITT Investec rates the global engineering group as a “buy” with a target price of 430p, saying it exited 2011 with good order and sales momentum and that trend is likely to be repeated when it reports for the first quarter on Thursday. STANDARD LIFE Panmure Gordon rates Standard Life as a “hold” ahead of [...]
LONDON REPORT April 22, 2012 UK investors are set for a busy week with a slew of earnings both here and on Wall Street, the release of Britain’s quarterly GDP rate and a decision from the Fed on the US Bank rate. Both the Nationwide Housing Prices report and Nationwide Consumer Confidence report are due out this week and today’s [...]
WALL ST THE WEEK AHEAD April 22, 2012 A SPIKE in bond yields has brought Europe’s debt crisis back to the forefront last week, and traders will be anxiously watching the sovereign debt markets alongside corporate earnings in the week ahead. US economic figures point to steady-but-uninspired growth, and stocks have backed off the sharp gains that recently pushed indexes to near four-year [...]
Insights from a young Silicon Valley startup April 22, 2012 THE RACE is on to turn Britain into an entrepreneurial society. But we aren’t blazing a trail just yet. This global pursuit for innovation remains a one-horse race, with Silicon Valley light-years ahead of the competition. Sam Chaudhary and Liam Don – the British-born founders of ClassDojo – have gone west to strike gold. THE [...]
Don’t toss away your cash: An expensive lesson in making faults April 22, 2012 WHEN Pat Cash won Wimbledon in 1987, he was asked how it could be improved. “I guess they could hold it in summer” he replied with classic Aussie irreverence. So when we met years later, I knew we’d get on well, and I ran my new idea past him: a website to sell high quality [...]
London businesses ruling the waves April 22, 2012 THE winners of the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise have just been announced and London has plenty of worthy entrepreneurs among winners. Dating back to 1966, the awards particularly celebrate those exporting their products and services to the rest of the world. London’s winners include several companies where the entrepreneur still holds a major stake: Acturis; [...]
The parable of the broken traffic lights: When good signals go bad April 22, 2012 SUPPOSE on some sunny afternoon in a large city somewhere in the western world, a man discovers on awaking from a two-hour nap that several hundred car accidents had occurred in the city while he slept. He wonders why. First he considers the possibility that the weather was the cause, but the gorgeous afternoon sun [...]
The bank branch of the future will do less but better April 22, 2012 RETAIL banks face a daunting challenge: providing profitable personal banking in a climate of cost cutting and digital disruption. A popular strategy is to focus branch staff on selling high value products and services, such as mortgages, while nudging other customers into self-service, online or mobile channels. In theory, this makes branches more profitable with [...]
Maintaining the City’s strength is in the interests of the whole economy April 22, 2012 AS I WRITE this, I am in Cyprus in advance of the Cypriot Presidency of the EU, meeting business and political leaders to set out the crucial importance of the City of London and the financial services industry in creating jobs and growth right across the European Union. The City of London remains the world’s [...]
