Euroclear bosses to swap jobs September 14, 2009 Clearance and settlement services provider Euroclear yesterday said two of its senior executives will switch roles. Valerie Urbain, managing director and head of human resources for the Euroclear group, and Pierre Slechten, chief executive officer of Belgium, France and the Netherlands operations will swap roles in October.
BBC iPlayer to be regulated September 14, 2009 Ofcom said yesterday that video on demand (VOD) programming, such as the BBC’s iPlayer, will be regulated from December. The regulation would be handled by the Association for Television on Demand, and the Advertising Standards Authority would be responsible for commercial issues.
WEALTHY OUT TO PLAY FOR SPEAR’S AWARDS September 14, 2009 LAST year, the Spear’s Wealth Management Awards were overshadowed somewhat by frantic whispers among the moneyed guests, who watched via BlackBerry as Congress voted against a $700bn bailout of the US banking industry and their Wall Street stock portfolios plummeted. So it was with some trepidation that those guests entered Christie’s auction house in St [...]
FTSEputs in highest close in almost a year on bank gains September 14, 2009 THE UK benchmark share index closed up 0.2 per cent yesterday as buoyant banks and defensive stocks countered weak miners and oils, keeping the index above 5,000 amid optimism over the pace of the rally seen since March. The FTSE 100 closed up 7.38 points at 5,018.85, its highest closing level since late September 2008. [...]
USin further gains as M&Adeals rise September 14, 2009 US stocks rose yesterday as reports of more merger activity added to a string of recent deals, suggesting investors still see value in the market after its run up of more than 50 per cent since March. Optimism about potential deals overshadowed concerns about trade friction between the United States and China after Washington imposed [...]
Lehman Bros bondholders may be owed up to 44bn September 14, 2009 THE trustee holders of collapsed Lehman Brothers’ senior bonds said the debt holders may be owed as much as $73bn (£44bn), after losing their investments when the bank filed for bankruptcy protection a year ago, according to court documents. Wilmington Trust Company claims that holders of the senior debt of the failed bank are estimated [...]
Intellectual errors at the heart of crisis September 14, 2009 At its heart, the credit crunch was fuelled by a deep intellectual error. It was this error which encouraged banks to take such a naïve and flawed view of the double or triple credit boom of the last 15 years. Rather than being something that regulators knew was wrong but did not have the power [...]
ONE YEAR ON, FORMER LEHMAN STAFF SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCES WITH CITY A.M. September 14, 2009 BISHER ARMANAZII was working as a trader in structured indices derivatives in London when Lehman Brothers went under. I was at home on the Sunday and happened to turn on the TV to see the story that the bank would not be receiving a government bailout. I went straight to a bar with a couple [...]
CITY VIEWS: WHERE WERE YOU WHEN LEHMAN WENT UNDER? September 14, 2009 NGUS MACLENNAN ANGMAC LTD“I was caught up in the middle of the banking crisis when it happened, working for a bank. Since then, the pace of City life has certainly slowed down. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. It was somewhat overheated before Lehman fell.” G BERTOLA AVIVA INSURANCE UNDERWRITER“I was on holiday at [...]
Back in the real world: how the rest of the country is coping a year on September 14, 2009 LET ME tell you about two pieces of writing. The first, a sign in an independent wine shop in an expensive part of London which I regularly cycle past on my way to work. It reads: “Just because we’re in recession doesn’t mean we have to drink bad wine.” The second is a piece of [...]