POOR SIR FRED June 18, 2009 SIR FRED Goodwin, the former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, is to hand back nearly a third of the £555,000-a-year pension he was awarded on leaving the bank. Goodwin will now take home £342,500 a year, or a total of £9m, after a deal was hammered out between RBS, the Treasury and UK [...]
Gartmore snatches European fund star Bennett from GAM June 18, 2009 ACCLAIMED fund manager John Bennett is leaving asset manager GAM after 16 years at the group, to take over Gartmore’s giant European retail funds. Glaswegian Bennett is to take over the £1.5bn Gartmore European Selected Opportunities fund and its £1.6bn Luxembourg-domiciled sister fund from star managers Roger Guy and Guillaume Rambourg. Guy and Rambourg are [...]
Brown cedes City oversight powers to EU June 18, 2009 PRIME Minister Gordon Brown ceded some regulatory powers to the EU yesterday, but stopped short of giving it a direct role in policing the City of London. Brown backed plans for tougher cross-border supervision of banks, but insisted ultimate control had to rest with national governments. Under plans being hammered out by EU nations three [...]
CITY VIEWS: DO YOU AGREE WITH SIR GOODWIN GIVING UP HALF HIS PENSION? June 18, 2009 NORMAN HEMMING ACCENTURE“I’m quite glad he did something, but I am surprised because I thought he would stand his ground. I didn’t get the impression he was all that bothered about what the public thought of him, though I don’t actually think this will be enough to placate them anyway.”HANNAH OLATUNDE BANKING LAWYER“I think there’s [...]
Fighting talk as Geithner wants action June 18, 2009 US TREASURY Secretary Tim Geithner yesterday testified before lawmakers, as he fought for proposals from President Barack Obama which will lead to the biggest overhaul of the US system of financial regulation since the 1930s. Geithner yesterday urged Congress to act quickly on the administration’s reforms, saying past efforts had started too late after the [...]
Big Swiss banks face break up June 18, 2009 SWITZERLAND yesterday became the latest country to join the global regulatory assault on the banking industry, warning that it could force the break up of large banks like UBS and Credit Suisse because they were too big to fail. The Swiss National Bank (SNB), which says that UBS and Credit Suisse still pose a risk [...]
Bernanke will testify to Congress on BoA merger June 18, 2009 FEDERAL Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is scheduled to testify to a House committee on 25 June about Bank of America’s acquisition of Wall Street rival Merrill Lynch last year, a committee aide said yesterday. The hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is set to begin at two o’clock London time. On [...]
YOU’RE STILL HIRED June 18, 2009 SIR Alan Sugar has won a fight to continue his hit series The Apprentice, after the BBC decided that his new role as the government’s enterprise champion would not not compromise the BBC’s impartiality. The BBC said that “Sir Alan has agreed that he will suspend all public facing activity relating to this unpaid post [...]
Gazprom closing in on Sibir June 18, 2009 Russian gas export giant Gazprom Neft yesterday appointed Igor Tsibelman as new chief executive of Sibir Energy in a sign the state-controlled oil major is tightening its grip on the London-listed company. Tsibelman, head of international legal affairs at Gazprom Neft, will replace Sibir Energy’s acting chief executive Stuard Detmer with immediate effect, Sibir said. [...]
Rudd to take helm of MAC fund June 18, 2009 Sir Nigel Rudd, former deputy chairman of Barclays is to chair a new fund set up by Marwyn Alternative Capital. It will specialise in small to mid-cap companies that have short term liquidity problems. Supported by Royal Bank of Scotland, the new fund will look at investing in construction, science and engineering, among other sectors. [...]
