National Express buys Petermann bus group for £126m September 13, 2011 Transport group National Express said it had acquired US student bus company Petermann Partners for $200m (£126m) from Macquarie Global Opportunities to help grow its business in the United States and Canada. National Expressy said it expected to complete the deal in the fourth quarter of 2011, subject to regulatory approvals, and that the acquisition [...]
Ashmore profits boosted by emerging markets September 13, 2011 – Fund manager Ashmore Group (ASHM.L) saw its pre-tax profits jump 13 per cent after clients looked to its emerging market products to see them through volatile times. Profits hit £245.9m in the year to June-end the company said in a statement, just ahead of £245m s forecast by Oriel Securities, after net management fees [...]
House prices slip in August September 13, 2011 House prices in England and Wales fell in August and transactions slipped to levels last seen during the recession in 2009, a survey showed on Tuesday. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ seasonally adjusted house price balance inched down to -23 from -22 in July, in line with the median forecast in a Reuters poll. [...]
A man’s shoes are as crucial as his suit September 13, 2011 THERE’S an old saying that if you want to know if a man’s well-dressed, look down. It’s absolutely true: good shoes make an outfit and bad ones stand out terribly, and that’s especially true of the City. So what should you be looking for in a good pair of English lace-ups? First, if you’re going [...]
Banks bashed: Vickers hits UK lenders with a raft of new rules and limits September 12, 2011 THE UK yesterday took a radical step towards imposing new regulations that will cost banks billions and risk eroding the competitiveness of the City. The Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) unveiled a report that its chair Sir John Vickers said “goes further” than international regulation. The ICB says that the reforms will cost banks between [...]
French bank shares hammered despite SocGen’s reassurances September 12, 2011 SOCIETE Generale attempted to defend its tumbling stock yesterday, detailing plans to cut costs and sell assets to free up €4bn (£3.4bn) in fresh capital. Yet investors still fled from the bank’s shares, which sank a further 10.8 per cent during the day. French banks were hammered on fears over their exposure to Greek debt, [...]
Hundreds of City jobs to go as BofA cuts costs by $5bn September 12, 2011 BANK of America chief executive Brian Moynihan yesterday said the bank would take drastic action to cut $5bn (£3.1bn) from its annual cost base. Moynihan told a New York conference BofA would sell assets and slash 30,000 jobs in the first phase of an overhaul to put it on a firmer financial footing and convince [...]
Yet again the emperor has no clothes September 12, 2011 SURELY not. I mean, the Vickers Independent Commission on Banking couldn’t possibly be a case of the emperor having no clothes, could it? Yet as I read through the 358-page tome, a conclusion I couldn’t quite believe kept staring me in the face. If Vickers had never existed, many of the biggest reforms his report [...]
ANALYSIS l Lloyds Banking Group PLC September 12, 2011 Of all the main banks, Lloyds is happiest with the outcome of the final report. That is because the Commission performed a U-turn on its recommendation for the bank’s sale of 632 branches. Whereas in its April interim report, the ICB said that Lloyds should “substantially enhance” its sale to include more branches, it has [...]
ANALYSIS l Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC September 12, 2011 RBS is despondent about the Vickers proposals, which it views as creating an impenetrable barrier between two interlinked parts of its business. It could suffer the most severe impact to its bottom line from the report. The bank is also worried that the policy will give its non-universal banking rivals an unfair advantage because they will [...]
