CITY FOLK FANCY THEIR CHANCES AT ASCOT June 15, 2009 HALF the City is due to decamp to Berkshire this week for Royal Ascot, which runs from today until Saturday. As usual, the raft of financiers meandering about the racecourse will be a mix of those enjoying a corporate jolly and those who’ve invested their wealth in horses – two of whom are tipped as [...]
Fortis replaces chief exec June 15, 2009 BELGIAN Insurance group Fortis, yesterday announced the departure of its chief executive Karel de Boeck, after just seven months at the helm. The group named insurance veteran Bart De Smet, as his successor. He will become the fifth new chief executive at Fortis in under a year. It is understood that De Boeck was ousted [...]
Labour split on cuts row June 15, 2009 DIVISIONS at the top of the Labour Party emerged yesterday over whether it would protect health and education from spending cuts after the next general election. The government is under pressure from shadow chancellor George Osborne who called for all politicians to have the “honesty” to admit there would be public spending cuts as a [...]
Wall Street hit by poor factory data June 15, 2009 US STOCKS tumbled yesterday, marking their worst slide in a month after regional manufacturing data dented optimism about the economy’s health and resource shares fell alongside commodity prices. After a series of signs the economy may be stabilising, investors are looking for more definitive signals of its improving health. Analysts also said a pullback was [...]
CPI set to fall to BoE target June 15, 2009 Consumer price inflation looks set to fall to the Bank of England’s two per cent target in May for the first time since late 2007, tugged lower by a recession-hit economy. CPI has been above the central bank’s target since October 2007, peaking at 5.2 per cent last September
Glaxo in emerging market deal June 15, 2009 GlaxoSmithKline took another significant step in building its business in emerging markets yesterday by signing an alliance with Indian generic drugmaker Dr Reddy’s Laboratories. The move builds on a deal last week with China’s Shenzhen Neptunus for flu vaccines.
US credit card defaults rocket June 15, 2009 US credit card defaults rose to record highs in May, with a steep deterioration of Bank of America’s lending portfolio, in another sign that consumers remain under severe stress. Delinquency rates – an indicator of future credit losses – fell across the industry, but analysts said the decline was due to a seasonal trend, as [...]
Here comes the regulatory tidal wave June 15, 2009 WE are about to enter the third stage of governments’ response to the credit crunch: first there was the firefighting, then the so-called stimulus packages and now comes the regulatory crackdown. There has to date been much pontificating but very little actual reform of the rules governing the global financial system. Banks have been nationalised [...]
Metals lose their shine and oil slips on the strong dollar June 15, 2009 LOWER commodities stocks and the firm dollar took the FTSE 100 lower yesterday, losing 2.6 per cent, or 115.94 points, to close at 4,326.01. Volumes were about 76 per cent of its 90-day average daily volume, but the index has risen 25 percent since hitting a six-year low on 9 March. “The fundamentals of the [...]
Obama to overhaul regulation June 15, 2009 PRESIDENT Barack Obama will tomorrow outline the most sweeping overhaul of US financial regulation since the Great Depression, in an attempt to prevent a repeat of last year’s financial crisis. Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers yesterday said the administration plans to create a “council of regulators” to coordinate supervision across [...]
