Client money not separated at MF Global November 1, 2011 BANKRUPT US broker MF Global flouted rules on keeping client and company funds in separate accounts, the head of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange claimed yesterday. Under rules set by the CME and the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), companies must hold client assets separately from those belonging to the company, but the exchange said preliminary [...]
Jefferies said it walked away from MF offer November 1, 2011 JEFFERIES decided not to buy MF Global Holdings because the company’s high leverage and its bets on European debt made it a risky gamble, Jefferies chief financial officer Peregrine Broadbent said yesterday. Shares in the US bank tumbled as much as 14 per cent as investors feared that the investment bank, another relatively small Wall [...]
St Paul’s protesters win pause in expulsion plans November 1, 2011 LEGAL action to remove anti-capitalist protesters from the area surrounding St Paul’s Cathedral was put on hold yesterday after discussions led to renewed cooperation between the church, the City and protesters. St Paul’s announced it wanted to “engage directly with both the protesters and the moral and social issues they wish to address, without the [...]
G4S investors vent ire after ISS deal scrapped November 1, 2011 INVESTORS in security firm G4S started to call for the chairman’s scalp yesterday after the company abandoned its takeover of Danish cleaning group ISS at the eleventh hour. Shareholders welcomed the decision to abort the unpopular £5.2bn merger, but called for chairman Alf Duch-Pedersen to resign over his handling of the deal. G4S pulled the [...]
Terra Firm set to leave RBS aviation sale November 1, 2011 TERRA Firma, the private equity firm run by Guy Hands, looks set to lose its place in the next stage of RBS’s £4bn auction of its aircraft leasing arm. The firm is not expected to improve its current bid in order to make it to the next round of the auction, Sky News reported last [...]
L&G sales flat but cash rises November 1, 2011 RETIREMENT and insurance group Legal & General yesterday reassured investors with a bigger than expected figure for its cash generation so far this year, despite sales of products such as annuities staying flat. L&G said it added £25bn of new funds to its asset management arm in the first nine months of the year, while [...]
Credit Suisse slashes jobs in UK and US November 1, 2011 CREDIT Suisse has announced it will slash 1,500 jobs as part of an overhaul that will see it refocus away from its traditional European bond trading business and towards high-growth markets in Asia and South America. The losses will fall most heavily on its fixed income and credit business, following deep job cuts already in [...]
Nomura cuts to hurt London November 1, 2011 NOMURA, Japan’s biggest brokerage, outlined plans to dramatically scale back its European wholesale banking operations yesterday after a slump in its trading income in the past quarter. The broker said it would triple its cost cuts to $1.2bn (£747m) per year after it plunged to a worse-than-expected net 46.1bn yen (£370m) quarterly loss, its first [...]
Danske Bank to reduce its headcount by 2,000 November 1, 2011 DANSKE Bank is to cut costs by 10 per cent, axing 2,000 jobs in the process, after quarterly profit was wiped out by a drop in trading income, becoming the latest Nordic lender to combat slowing revenue growth and higher funding costs. The Danish bank, which wants to cut expenses by about 2bn Danish crowns [...]
Swiss capital rules will prove final straw November 1, 2011 FOR all the furore over the rogue trading scandal at UBS, it is Switzerland’s notoriously strict capital requirements – not allegedly unauthorised trades – that is most hurting the country’s banks. That’s why the strategy unveiled by Credit Suisse boss Brady Dougan yesterday differs little from the one being pursued by UBS. The case of [...]
