BA to offload pension risk to insurance firm July 1, 2010 BRITISH Airways said it had removed £1.3bn of pension risk in a deal with Goldman Sachs-owned insurance specialists Rothesay Life yesterday, removing another obstacle to its planned merger with Spanish airline Iberia. BA will pay Rothesay for insurance on 20 per cent of its exposure to the Airlines Pension Scheme, which provides defined benefit pensions [...]
ECB relief as banks repay €442bn loans July 1, 2010 THE EUROPEAN Central Bank breathed a sigh of relief yesterday as banks repaid a record €442bn (£365bn) in year-long emergency loans. Demand for short-term credit was lower than expected, with Eurozone banks taking out €403bn (£332bn) in stopgap loans to keep liquidity during the repayment period. More than 1,100 banks paid back the 12-month loans [...]
Goldman Sachs denies pushing AIG over the edge with collateral demands July 1, 2010 GOLDMAN Sachs officials insisted demands for billions of dollars from insurer AIG ahead of a $182bn government rescue package were based on legitimate market prices and denied gaming values for a massive payout. Members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission peppered Goldman witnesses with questions yesterfday about their aggressive demands for collateral from AIG and [...]
Details scant as stress test results loom July 1, 2010 Details of Europe-wide testing of banks’ financial vulnerabilities are still being worked out as an end-of-July deadline to publish the stress test results for individual banks looms, the Bundesbank said yesterday. Bundesbank vice president Franz-Christoph Zeitler said regulators were pushing ahead with plans for the tests, even as some reports claimed the German central bank [...]
Moody’s defends debt revamp July 1, 2010 MOODY’S Investors Service today published the revised framework the rating agency will use to assess the relative debt and equity characteristics of hybrid securities for the purposes of calculating an issuer’s debt and capital-related financial ratios. The revised approach will change these calculations for many firms, but will not lead to changes in the issuers’ [...]
Q&A: EUROPEAN BANK STRESS TESTS July 1, 2010 Q.How will Europe stress test its banks? A.Originally, EU regulators planned to test just 25 large, cross-border banks, including Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, France’s BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole, and Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Barclays and Lloyds. Now they’re expected to cover banks holding about half the banking assets in each country. [...]
Barclays sees forecasts cut July 1, 2010 ANALYSTS slashed their forecasts for Barclays yesterday after the British bank warned of weakness in second quarter investment banking revenues and difficulties in Spain. Barclays shares fell 5.6 per cent to 255p following guidance from finance director Chris Lucas that “investment banking market conditions in May and June have been softer, in particular reflecting lower [...]
Aim-listed WorldSpreads gets a boost from overseas July 1, 2010 AIM-LISTED spread betting firm WorldSpreads yesterday announced a jump in pre-tax profits to £2.66m for the year ended 31 March, easily beating the £0.22m it reported in 2009. It was overseas clients that helped to drive performance. WorldSpreads, which has operations in Dublin, London, Cape Town and Kuala Lumpur, saw 41 per cent of trades [...]
RBS sells London’s Cumberland Hotel to US and UK joint venture July 1, 2010 ROYAL Bank of Scotland has sold Cumberland Hotel in central London for £215m to a joint venture of US private equity firm Starwood Capital and property investor London & Regional. “The Cumberland sale is the largest hotel investment deal in Europe for over a year,” said Derek Gammage, head of EMEA at CBRE Hotels, which [...]
Hedgies blast EU bonus law as ridiculous July 1, 2010 LONDON’S hedge funds community slammed forthcoming European rules on bonuses as “absolutely ridiculous” yesterday as it transpired asset managers will be caught up in the crackdown on bankers’ pay. The European Union confirmed investment firms, as defined under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFiD), will fall under the scope of its tough restrictions on [...]
