BBVA puts €2bn bet on Turkey November 19, 2014 SPANISH lender BBVA yesterday bought another €2bn (1.6bn) stake in Turkey’s second largest private bank, Garanti. The 14.89 per cent stake comes from Dogus Holdings, and takes BBVA’s overall stake to 39.9 per cent. A global footprint was one fact which helped Spanish lenders BBVA and Santander through the financial crisis, as Spain’s domestic economy [...]
Pay gap falls as young women out-earn men November 19, 2014 THE GENDER pay gap has fallen to a record low, official figures showed yesterday, as young women now earn more than men. Among 22- to 29-year olds, women earn an average of 1.1 per cent more than men per hour. And for 30- to 39-year olds, women earn 0.2 per cent more. However, men still earn more [...]
Jump in female and foreign directors on big UK firms’ boards November 19, 2014 Britain is increasingly the home of international business, as the UK’s biggest firms have four-times more foreign directors than their US counterparts. And female representation on boards is also growing strongly One-third of FTSE 150 directors are non-UK citizens, compared with just eight per cent of S&P 200 board members in the US, Spencer Stuart’s [...]
US Justice Department raked in $24bn this year on bank fines November 19, 2014 Giant bank fines helped the US Department of Justice triple its income from the charges this year, officials revealed last night. The DoJ is just one of several major finance regulators, and its total haul of fines for the financial year ending 30 September came in at a record $24bn (£15.3bn) – up from $8bn on the [...]
BGC Partners slapped on wrist over GFI Group share buy rule breach November 19, 2014 Brokerage BGC Partners yesterday promised to make sure it told regulators in future when it bought shares in rivals. It had bought a 10 per cent stake in GFI Group without first telling the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), or getting its permission. But despite that breach of the rules, BGC will be allowed to carry on [...]
After Saga and Toys R Us fiascos calls grow for IPO markets shake-up November 18, 2014 Banks and investors are calling on the City watchdog to probe the behaviour of independent advisers on stock market flotations, fearing the initial public offerings (IPO) market in Europe could become dysfunctional. They argue that advisers are distorting the market by putting pressure on banks’ analysts to put an unrealistically high price on [...]
New digital bank picks Starling name: “It will look more like Facebook than a bank” November 18, 2014 A digital bank being set up by ex-AIB banker Anne Boden has picked the name Starling for its brand. Boden hopes to gain the first part of the licence in late spring 2015, before raising the roughly £100m of capital needed and getting a full licence at the end of next year. The bank will [...]
We got it Wronga says Wonga: Payday loan firm vows to behave in future November 18, 2014 A top Wonga executive gave a grovelling apology in parliament yesterday for the way the firm had treated customers in the past. And he promised to work harder to do the right thing in future. The payday lender has written to 27,000 customers to offer redress for mistreatment – for instance, to make amends for [...]
Homeserve back on track in rebound from sales overhaul November 18, 2014 DOMESTIC repairs group Homeserve reported a surge in first-half profits yesterday, as it recovered from its mis-selling scandal. Pre-tax profits came to £25.3m for the six-month period, compared with just £600,000 in the first half of last year. Revenues edged up on the year to £241.7m. The results were also slowed by the strong pound [...]
UK Mail share price bounces despite pallets crunch and Eurozone slowdown November 18, 2014 Deliveries business UK Mail reported resilient profits for the third quarter yesterday, despite struggling with the economic slowdown in the Eurozone. Its financial results took a hit from a goodwill writedown of £7.3m in its pallets business, but the other units proved relatively healthy. Group revenues slid 0.8 per cent on the year to £241.4m, [...]