Barclays chair was right to resign over scandal July 1, 2012 IT took a few days too long but the Libor scandal has finally claimed its first senior scalp. Marcus Agius, Barclays’ chairman since January 2007, has quit, in a bid by the firm to show senior staff are taking responsibility for the rate-rigging scandal. That was the right thing for Agius to do: the Libor [...]
Referendum on EU splits the coalition July 1, 2012 PRIME Minister David Cameron yesterday reopened the battle lines within the coalition over Britain’s membership of the EU by signalling he might yet hold a referendum. “For me the two words ‘Europe’ and ‘referendum’ can go together,” Cameron wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. But he added: “The problem with an in/out referendum is that it [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 1, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES Esma probes agencies’ views on banks The pan-European markets regulator has launched a probe into the way the big three credit rating agencies evaluate banks to determine if the process is sufficiently rigorous and transparent, its chairman Steven Maijoor told the Financial Times. The European Securities and Markets Authority has begun inspecting Standard [...]
Heritage spends £541m on oil assets in Nigeria July 1, 2012 HERITAGE Oil is spending $850m (£541m) on assets in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, the firm announced yesterday. The firm will buy a 45 per cent in the OML 30 fields from Shell, Total and Eni in a bid to diversify. The firm has endured frustratingly slow progress at its Kurdistan wells, which has weighed [...]
Buckingham’s team will have to fight hard for a Nigerian win July 1, 2012 WHEN Arsenal last week announced it would play its first pre-season friendly against Nigeria’s national team in Abuja next month, the club won plaudits for bringing investment into the country. Tony Buckingham, the swashbuckling chief executive of Heritage Oil, must be hoping for a similarly warm reception from investors after his own entry to that [...]
Agius bows out after losing support July 1, 2012 CITY GRANDEE Marcus Agius, 65, who is poised to resign as group chairman of Barclays, was seen as a welcome but unexpected addition to the banking giant’s board when he first joined from the smaller Lazard in 2006. At that time, Agius was at the height of a lengthy 34-year career at the blue-blooded advisory [...]
RBS traders sacked following investigation into Libor fixing July 1, 2012 FOUR traders at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) have been sacked following an internal investigation into accusations that the company rigged the Libor interest rate, it emerged yesterday. It is understood that the dismissals took place in October and November last year. A spokesman for the bank confirmed that four people have left the [...]
Scandal is devastating blow to every bank July 1, 2012 IN THE bad old days of 2007 and 2008, at 11am each day, we’d wait with mounting anticipation for the London Interbank Offer Rate (Libor). Queues formed outside branches of Northern Rock, HBOS, RBS and Lloyds teetered on the edge of unsustainability, and we (foolishly) looked to Libor to tell us quite how bad things [...]
Political pressure builds on Diamond July 1, 2012 BOB Diamond faces a battle to save his career after finding himself at the centre of a political storm ahead of his appearance at the Treasury select committee on Wednesday. “Parliament and the public need to know what went wrong and whether the perpetrators have been rooted out,” said Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie, who heads [...]
SFO backed out of rates probe July 1, 2012 INVESTIGATORS at the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) considered launching an investigation into abuse of the Libor interest last September but decided against it due to a lack of funds, it was claimed yesterday. Former SFO director Richard Alderman took the decision, allegedly citing overstretched resources at the anti-fraud agency. This left the Financial Services Authority [...]
