Cable anger at plans to make firing staff easier October 26, 2011 BUSINESS Secretary Vince Cable has shot down new plans to make it easier for companies to sack under-performing staff. Liberal Democrats said the proposal to scrap unfair dismissal rules, contained in a leaked report for the coalition by venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft, would not get off the ground. Aides to Cable said there was no [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING October 26, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES SANTANDER SEEKS TO OFFLOAD €3BN OF PROPERTY Spain’s Santander, the biggest bank in the Eurozone by market capitalisation, is quietly trying to sell a €3bn package of thousands of repossessed homes and plots of land to foreign investors to clean up its balance sheet, according to sources. THE TIMES RIO TINTO HAS TO [...]
Output of UK factories hit by euro woes October 26, 2011 MANUFACTURING has been hit by the Eurozone crisis, and output may decline this quarter according to the Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) quarterly trends survey. Business optimism has fallen for the second consecutive quarter. The net balance of firms feeling more optimistic than they were three months ago fell to minus 30 per cent from [...]
CITY VIEWS: ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT THE STATE OF THE UK ECONOMY? October 26, 2011 PETE GOAD | LLOYD’S OF LONDON “I am not overly concerned at the moment; it is definitely getting worse but I have every confidence that it will turn around over the next couple of years.” PAUL CLAYTON | JRP UNDERWRITING “Not really, not more than it was worrying me 20 years ago. What increasingly affects [...]
Record drop in retail jobs as consumers spend less October 26, 2011 LOW consumer spending has led to the fastest drop in retail employment since the British Retail Consortium (BRC) started monitoring data in 2008, a study released yesterday showed. Employment fell by 23,000 in the twelve months to September. Part-time staff were worst hit, while full time employment in the third quarter fell 5,780 on the [...]
BBVA sees impairments rise in Spanish business October 26, 2011 SPAIN’S second biggest lender, BBVA, saw profits drop and impairments in its core Spanish business rise in yesterday’s third-quarter results. The bank also gained market share in mortgages, increasing its exposure to the country’s troubled property market. Group pre-tax profits dropped by 21.2 per cent to €4.15bn (£3.61bn), while in Spain pre-tax earnings lost a [...]
Head of Freddie Mac set to quit October 26, 2011 FREDDIE Mac’s chief executive, Charles E “Ed” Haldeman Jr, will step down by the end of the year after just over two years in the post, the regulator of the company said yesterday. The US Federal Housing Finance Agency, which also oversees sister state-backed mortgage investor Fannie Mae, said it will work with the board [...]
MF Global to weigh options October 26, 2011 STRUGGLING derivatives broker MF Global is understood to have hired bankers to help it consider its options, which could include a takeover or the sale of parts of the business. The New York-based firm, which has seen its share price fall by almost 50 per cent this week following dire results, was downgraded to a [...]
Barclays to offer 90pc mortgages October 26, 2011 BARCLAYS launched a new bid to entice prospective house-buyers back to the market yesterday by offering no-fee mortgages needing only a ten per cent deposit. The bank has refused to offer 90 per cent loan-to-value mortgages since 2008 when it pulled them during the financial crisis, but is now following rivals such as NatWest and [...]
Former head of McKinsey surrenders himself to FBI October 26, 2011 A FORMER Goldman Sachs director, who was once the global head of elite consultancy McKinsey & Co, yesterday surrendered to the FBI to face criminal charges related to insider trading. Rajat Gupta, one of the most prominent business executives to be caught up in the government’s wide-ranging insider-trading probe, had been named by prosecutors as [...]
