Aon snaps up Hewitt with $4.9bn offer July 12, 2010 Aon, the world’s largest insurance brokerage, yesterday said it’s buying Hewitt Associates for $4.9bn (£3.3bn) in cash and stock to create the world’s largest human resources company. With Hewitt, Aon will get a firm foothold in human resource and benefits outsourcing and take on rival insurance broker Marsh and McLennan’s Mercer unit. The deal, the [...]
Standard Life overhaul sees investor relations boss leave July 12, 2010 STANDARD Life’s head of investor relations has left the company after a shake-up of the insurer’s operations led to his position being axed. Gordon Aitken, a former sell-side analyst with JPMorgan and Credit Suisse First Boston, departed a fortnight ago. Under the terms of a group-wide review ordered by chief executive David Nish, Aitken will [...]
Wall Street reform moves a step closer as approaches its final vote July 12, 2010 THE US Senate will vote this week on a landmark rewrite of financial regulations, Senate democratic leader Harry Reid said yesterday after three Republicans said they would back the measure. “We will finish our work on this bill this week to ensure that these critical protections and accountability for Wall Street are in place as [...]
UK recession was deeper than thought July 12, 2010 BRITAIN suffered a far deeper contraction than had previously been thought and the health of the economy was far more reliant on public spending in the first three months of 2010, official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed yesterday. The data, which had been delayed by nearly two weeks, due to “potential [...]
Brief sunny spell for retailers July 12, 2010 SUNNY weather and summer clearance sales gave retail sales a much-needed boost last month, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) will say today in its monthly survey. Retail sales values rose 1.2 per cent on a like-for-like basis on June 2009 while total retail sales values were up 3.4 per cent. However, in the three months [...]
Mortgage lending up in May but outlook unclear July 12, 2010 MORTGAGE lending rose slightly in May thanks to continued record low interest rates, the Council for Mortgage Lenders (CML) said yesterday. It reported that 42,000 loans worth £6bn for house purchase were advanced in May, a 15 per cent increase on a year earlier. Remortgaging activity recovered a little as well in May, rising on [...]
Uncertainty hits buyer demand and house prices July 12, 2010 WEAK demand and a flood of properties onto the market hit house price expectations last month, according to the Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors (RICS) monthly survey published today. Only a net 10 per cent of estate agents reported a rise rather than a fall in prices compared to 22 per cent in May. Buyer [...]
IoD survey finds a third of firms have been refused access to additional credit July 12, 2010 A THIRD of businesses have been refused additional borrowing this year by their banks due to a tightening of lending criteria and increased demands for security, according to a report released today. New findings by the Institute of Directors (IoD) show businesses are still struggling to access finance from their banks despite the continued injection [...]
ECONOMIST VIEWS: WHAT WILL DRIVE THE UK’S ECONOMIC RECOVERY? July 12, 2010 SIMON WARD | HENDERSON “The UK GDP revision confirms a domestic demand-led recovery. Domestic demand was stronger than previously thought in the latest quarter and over the last year, with net exports correspondingly weaker. The demand upgrade was focused on fixed investment.” MICHAEL SAUNDERS | CITIGROUP “We expect that this ongoing monetary stimulus [weak pound [...]
OECD unemployment rate falls July 12, 2010 The unemployment rate in the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) member countries fell to 8.6 per cent in May from 8.7 per cent the previous month. The country with the highest rates was Spain (19.9 per cent) while the lowest was South Korea at 3.2 per cent.
