BT boss Gavin Patterson misses out on £290,000 bonus after company fails to meet customer service targets May 19, 2016 BT chief executive Gavin Patterson lost out on a £290,000 bonus thanks to the company missing its customer service targets last year. Customer experience is one of the measures the telecom giant uses to set its executives’ annual bonus, BT said in its annual report published on Thursday. The poor performance led to Patterson’s overall annual [...]
Britain sucked toward billion pound innovation funding Brexit black hole May 18, 2016 British business faces a billion pound funding black hole for research and development that risks leaving the nation trailing behind the rest of Europe when it comes to creating world leading technological and scientific innovation. More than a fifth of the UK’s £8bn competitive R&D funding in the last decade has come from Europe, but that [...]
Investment banking revenues plunged to financial crisis levels in 2015 – and a greater drop is expected this year May 17, 2016 Global investment banking revenues dropped to their lowest levels since the financial crisis last year. And they are expected to plummet even further this year, according to a new report. Analysis in the Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Capital Markets 2016 report predicts 2016 investment banking revenue to total $212bn (£147bn), down seven per cent from [...]
Vodafone raises dividends as it predicts better things to come May 17, 2016 Vodafone's share price rose in early trading this morning, after the telecoms giant reported further declines in its final results for the year – but forecast a turnaround to come in 2017. The figures Group revenues fell three per cent to £40.9bn in the 12 months to 31 March, while group services revenues dropped 3.5 per cent to £37.2bn. Organic revenues [...]
Standard Life sleepwalks towards a pay revolt May 13, 2016 First Schroders, now Standard Life: it’s turning into a season of grand City institutions firing bullets into their own feet. Fresh from the calamitous handling of Michael Dobson’s elevation to the chair at Schroders, its Scottish-based peer is making an even bigger pig’s ear of a process it should be able to navigate in its [...]
Good news for Liverpool fans: BT Sport and YouTube to stream Champions League and Europa League finals for free online May 12, 2016 BT Sport will stream the Champions League and Europa League finals live on YouTube, allowing millions of fans not subscribed to the TV channel to watch the games for free. The decision follows reports that Uefa is concerned with poor viewing figures for the first season of BT Sport's £897m deal which took European football away [...]
After the EU’s O2-Three merger decision, five questions for the UK mobile market May 11, 2016 Hutchison’s bid for O2 has been turned down in Europe. Here are five questions the UK mobile market is asking today Continued competition… Ofcom initially rejected the merger based on evidence that fewer competitors results in less pressure to keep prices down. It’s that same fear which informed today’s decision, despite assurances from Hutchison of a five year [...]
O2 – Three merger blocked by European Commission May 11, 2016 The European Commission competition regulator has blocked the planned takeover of O2 by Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison. The deal would have seen Telefonica’s O2 merge with Hutchison's UK network Three in a deal valued at £10.25bn. The tie up would have reduced the mobile operators in the UK to three, leaving just Vodafone and BT’s EE to challenge the merged [...]
Japanese and European investment banks agree merger to create global M&A advisory May 9, 2016 A Japanese investment bank has agreed a merger with a European peer to create one of the world's largest listed M&A advisories. The combination of Japan's GCA Savvian and Altium creates a new international investment bank operating across ten countries, in cities such as London, Manchester, Tokyo, San Francisco, New York, Mumbai, Frankfurt and Tel Aviv. Read more: These two [...]
City Moves for 9 May 2016 | Who’s switching jobs May 9, 2016 Parker Fitzgerald Parker Fitzgerald (PFG), the specialist management consultancy, has appointed Patrick Gormley (pictured) to its executive board. Patrick will lead the firm’s global digital practice, which focuses on transforming the risk management and regulatory compliance functions of financial institutions through digital innovation, robotics, artificial intelligence and new technologies such as blockchain. Patrick joins PFG [...]