Mizuho picks new international boss September 17, 2012 JAPANESE bank Mizuho has hired Michiel de Jong, an investment banking veteran of Dutch group ABN Amro, to run its London-based advisory and securities business as it tries to make inroads into the international market. De Jong, who started as president and chief executive officer of Mizuho International yesterday, replaces Paul Hearn, a former BNP [...]
M&S bigwig Bostock sells more shares September 17, 2012 THE OUTGOING head of Marks & Spencers’ non-food business sold off almost a quarter of a million shares in the firm on Friday, regulatory filings showed yesterday. Kate Bostock, who is leaving the firm on 1 October by mutual consent, exercised options granted in 2004 to acquire and then sell 249,627 shares, making a net [...]
Hibu and Global Payments tie-up September 17, 2012 ■ Digital services provider Hibu yesterday announced a partnership with Global Payments, which offers electronic transaction processing services. Hibu, formerly known as Yell, said the tie-up would allow it to provide local businesses in the UK with the ability to take card payments. Hibu will initially offer the service to its existing customer base of [...]
Telefonica picks Aurasma for AR September 17, 2012 ■ Telefonica said yesterday it has picked Hewlett-Packard’s Aurasma technology to expand its mobile advertising offerings in one of the largest deals yet in the emerging market for augmented reality. Augmented reality overlays text or graphics on images viewed on smartphone, tablet and PC screens. Aurasma was part of Autonomy, a former FTSE 100 company [...]
Brady reports 37pc half-year lift September 17, 2012 ■ Commodity software solutions provider Brady reported a 37 per cent increase in half-year revenue as it signed up eight new licence deals. The company, which works for the energy, metals and commodities sectors, said sales revenue rose to £12.11m from £8.8m a year ago.
City Moves | Who’s switching jobs September 17, 2012 LDC The private equity house has appointed Andrew Hampshire as investment director in its value enhancement group. He joins from the Lloyds Banking Group, where he spent six years leading change and technology programmes. He was most recently responsible for heading up Lloyds’s data quality function. Deloitte Fredrik Burger has been appointed as a partner [...]
Best of the Brokers September 17, 2012 RBS Investec has cut the bank from “hold” to “sell” with a price target of 245p. The broker believes RBS’s return on equity is too weak to prop up its current share price. ADMIRAL Espirito Santo has lowered its rating to “sell” with a fair value price of 900p. The broker thinks the insurer is [...]
FTSE retreats from half-year highs reached after Federal Reserve fillip September 17, 2012 BRITAIN’S FTSE 100 retreated from half-year highs yesterday, in what strategists said was likely to be a profit-taking pause in a threemonth- long rally stimulated by global central banks. The benchmark share index has risen some 12 per cent since the start of June, propelled by expectations of central bank action that took effect in [...]
Scrapping dysfunctional GCSEs will return rigour to British classrooms September 17, 2012 CONSIDERING the howls of outrage that greeted this year’s GCSE results, the reaction to Michael Gove’s new English Baccalaureate Certificate has been surprisingly muted. This is not altogether surprising: GCSEs are corrupt and corrupting, and it’s hard to find a teacher with anything good to say about them. Under New Labour, ministers showed little evidence [...]
Fiscal stimulus: Too much of a good thing can prove a country’s undoing September 17, 2012 IN THEORY, when the economy is performing below its potential, governments can get things moving with a well-designed fiscal stimulus. Sadly, in practice, a stimulus is rarely well-designed, and even their greatest advocates are forced to ignore history and argue that “this time will be different”. Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has admitted that the [...]
