Man U posts record profit ahead of IPO September 1, 2011 Manchester United yesterday moved one step closer to its bumper $1bn (£618m) Singapore IPO after unveiling record profits and revenues. It swung to a pre-tax gain of £29.7m, compared with a loss of £79.2m last year. Its total revenue also soared 16 per cent to £331.4m – the first time it has surpassed the £300m [...]
Charter cheers as Melrose sweetens offer to £1.44bn September 1, 2011 CHARTER International moved a step closer to selling out to Melrose yesterday as it agreed to open its books to the investment group in response to a sweetened offer. Melrose raised its cash and share offer for Charter for a third time to 850p, valuing the business at £1.44bn, just days after Charter revealed it [...]
UK HOUSE PRICES IN SHARP SLIDE September 1, 2011 HOUSE prices in August fell at their sharpest rate since October 2010. The decline was the first since April, according to figures released yesterday by the Nationwide building society. The country-wide 0.6 per cent drop – a fall of £2,817, taking the average price to £165,914 – makes houses 0.4 per cent cheaper than last [...]
Hays lifted by Asia as jobs in City shrink September 1, 2011 RECRUITMENT company Hays yesterday said its UK business had been hit by a slump in the banking sector. But Hays still reported a 50 per cent rise in full year profit thanks to the strong performance of international markets. For the year to the end of June its profits were £106.6m, in line with market [...]
Banker bashers rejoice: financiers lose livelihoods September 1, 2011 THERE are two very common misconceptions about the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. In our special feature on pages eight and nine, we demolish the first: that it is business as usual for banks. The second is that very few bankers lost their jobs as a result of the crisis. Nothing could be further [...]
CITY VIEWS: WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO MOVE TO ASIA FOR A JOB OPPORTUNITY? September 1, 2011 TOM KIRKLAND | FSJ BROKING “No, not me personally. The fact that you would have to move away from family would be a hard decision. I also think the different culture and climate would be a tough adjustment.” DAVE PHILLIPS | JRP “For some people it would be a great opportunity if the situation was [...]
Business as usual? Hardly, for anyone working in finance September 1, 2011 SINCE the financial crisis, business secretary Vince Cable has taken to the airways on a regular basis to criticise a supposed culture of business as usual in the City, suggesting that the government must get ever-tougher to counter the fact that hardly anything has changed for banks. Nothing could be further from the truth. HSBC [...]
NEW REGULATION September 1, 2011 • Basel 2.5: The changes to banks’ capital regime introduced over 2009-2010 rejigged the methods that banks must use to calculate the value of their “risk-weighted assets” (RWA) – that is, their total assets adjusted for certain kinds of risk. This shifted banks from a Basel II regime to what the industry calls “Basel 2.5”. [...]
SO WHO’S IN CHARGE OF ENFORCING ALL THESE NEW RULES? September 1, 2011 • European Securites and Markets Authority (ESMA): Europe’s new super-regulator, in charge of the oversight of the region’s securities industry. ESMA can overrule member states if it thinks national regulators are not taking sufficient measures to tackle potential threats to investors. Its executive director Verena Ross is the only senior member of staff at any [...]
Glencore and consortium eye $1bn deal September 1, 2011 SOUTH AFRICA’S Optimum Coal has confirmed a consortium including a unit of commodity trading giant Glencore and prominent local politician-turned-tycoon Cyril Ramaphosa was interested in buying it for about $1bn (£618m). This would be Glencore’s most significant purchase since its record share listing, when it sacrificed its fiercely protected privacy to gain the balance sheet firepower [...]
