Oberthur funding in doubt January 13, 2011 DE La Rue’s share price has sunk 5.8 per cent to 787p since the start of the week as doubts surface over Oberthur Technologies’ ability to fund its 905p bid, worth £896m. Oberthur is in talks with several private equity houses about its offer, which it has until 7 February to finalise due to a [...]
KPMG to pay undergraduates January 13, 2011 School-leavers could be paid upwards of £20,000 a year while they study at university, in a landmark scheme launched by KPMG yesterday. The programme is the latest attempt by Britain’s leading accountancy firm to capitalise on anxiety over rising university fees. High-achieving school graduates who commit to a six-year training contract will be put through [...]
US attempts to curb speculators January 13, 2011 Speculators may face curbs on dealing in commodity markets after the US futures regulator yesterday advanced a plan to prevent the biggest traders from taking market-distorting bets. The proposal, passed 4-1 by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, would attempt to curb positions investors can hold in commodity markets, with the aim of preventing large players [...]
Goldman loss from crisis was $13.5bn January 13, 2011 GOLDMAN Sachs’s losses from the financial crisis were billions more than many investors previously thought, it has revealed, as it re-filed its 2008 and 2009 results to make it clearer how much it lost in the fallout. The bank incurred a $13.5bn (£8.6bn) loss from its investments and lending in the year to the end [...]
Trichet hints at rate rise as warns of threat of inflation January 13, 2011 THE European Central Bank (ECB) is poised to raise interest rates even while the Eurozone is mired in a debt crisis, it hinted yesterday as it left rates on hold at their historic low of one per cent. In his strongest words to date on the threat of surging inflation, ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet warned [...]
Ex-City analyst fined £50,000 for careless IM January 13, 2011 EX-CITY analyst Christopher Gower was yesterday slapped with a £50,000 fine for making “misleading and inaccurate” market disclosures” on pub chain Enterprise Inns which saw the shares surge. Following a meeting with Punch chief executive, Gower, then working as a senior retail analyst for broker MF Global, sent 14 clients, a Bloomberg reporter as well [...]
ECB buys time with strong Spanish sale January 13, 2011 THE euro rose to a three-week high against the Swiss franc and regained some of the ground lost to the dollar after successful bond auctions in Spain and Italy yesterday. However, with strong suspicions that the European Central Bank (ECB) is buying up bonds to keep a lid on yields, the relief is likely to [...]
Finance courses need rethink January 13, 2011 CITY A.M.’s literacy campaign received another boost yesterday as more feedback from readers added weight to the cause. Several key City firms have been working to build strategies to support entrepreneurs, young investors and women in finance over the past five years. But according to those with inside knowledge of such schemes, the programmes are [...]
S&P and Moody’s voice concerns about US rating January 13, 2011 RATINGS agencies Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s warned yesterday that the United States’ AAA credit rating could face a downgrade if its debt ratio fails to right itself. Sarah Carlson, a senior analyst at Moody’s, said in a report “If [the US] are not offsetting measures to reverse the deterioration in negative fundamentals, the likelihood [...]
Basel tightens rules on bank hybrid debt January 13, 2011 GLOBAL bank regulators yesterday laid out rules to make clear holders of hybrid bank debt will take losses if a lender becomes insolvent, so that taxpayers aren’t left to foot the bill. One of the biggest controversies of the financial crisis was how holders of subordinated bank capital debt escaped liability for bank failures even [...]
