FOOD & BOOZE NEWS April 19, 2010 ENOCLUB NIGHTS at POLPO Polpo, the Venetian bacaro that took?Soho by storm when it opened last year, is launching a series of events dedicated to educating the wining, dining public about northern Italian wine. Each evening will focus on a different Northern Italian region highlighting the variety of quality wines each area has to offer. [...]
Goldman stands by fraud suspect April 18, 2010 GOLDMAN Sachs has stood firm behind the man at the centre of the storm over the $1bn (£651m) fraud allegations against it, adding that he may even turn up to work in London this morning as normal. Goldman said the status of Fabrice Tourre was unchanged after he was named in two counts of securities [...]
Lib Dems grab shock lead in polls April 18, 2010 THE LIBERAL Democrats last night continued their remarkable polling gains, as a YouGov opinion poll for the Sun said the party had jumped four points to 33 per cent. The poll placed the Tories one point down, on 32 per cent. Meanwhile Labour fell four points to trail on 26 per cent. Lib Dem leader [...]
Item Club in Darling swipe April 18, 2010 A LEADING economist forecasting group has questioned Alistair Darling’s future plans for the UK public finances, saying his projections in the recent Budget lacked both precision and ambition. The Ernst & Young Item Club praised Darling’s Budget for assisting businesses and supporting the labour market but said the Treasury had wrongly based its assumptions for [...]
Black Swans back with a vengeance April 18, 2010 CHAOS theory reigns supreme. That is one of the most powerful lessons in life: unexpected events always tend to derail even the best and most carefully thought out plans. We have seen three major disruptions to the received wisdom in the past few days; all will have severe consequences. The first was the outcome of [...]
Tories seize on IFS report April 18, 2010 THE TORIES yesterday seized on a report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies that criticised Labour’s stewardship of the public finances. The independent economic think-tank noted that the public sector moved from a deficit to a surplus in the early years of the 1997 Labour government, when the party followed tax and spending plans laid [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING April 18, 2010 THE SUNDAYS The Sunday Telegraph BARCAP TO RAID ECM BANKERS Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of barclays bank, is creating a bold plan to catapult its equity capital markets (ECM) business into a global top-three player in under five years. The ambitious strategy just 18 months after its $1.85bn (£1.2bn) acquisition of Lehman Brothers’ [...]
Innovative is 48th failed US bank April 18, 2010 California-based Innovative Bank has become the 48th US financial institution to fail this year. It had $268.9m (£175m) in assets, and $225.2m in deposits at the end of 2009. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FIDC) estimates that the collapse will cost the deposit insurance fund $37.8m. Innovative was founded in 1982 as the Bank of [...]
Facebook’s new targeted ads April 18, 2010 Facebook, the world’s most popular social networking site, could introduce a new generation of targeted advertising that tracks its users’ internet activity. By following its users’ journey through the internet it could deliver highly tailored ads. The system will involve introducing a new “Facebook button” which will appear on a host of external sites, allowing [...]
Prudential bid like a forced marriage, says Asia analyst April 18, 2010 ONE of the largest brokerage firms working in Asia has launched a scathing attack on Prudential’s planned acquisition of AIA. A CLSA note obtained by City A.M. likened Prudential’s $35.5bn (£22.8bn) bid for AIG’s Asian business to “parents forcing their daughter to marry someone she doesn’t like for money.” The 11-page attack, penned by Patricia [...]
