FTSE 250 closes at record high on recovery hopes May 7, 2021 The FTSE 250 mid-cap index closed at a record high this week as hopes of a stronger economic recovery lifted industrial and consumer discretionary stocks. The FTSE 250 index advanced 1.2 per cent, with industrial stocks, including Easyjet, IMI and Pagegroup, rising between 2.7 and 5.1 per cent. The FTSE 100 meanwhile rose 0.76 per cent, [...]
Activist investor sells stake in Barclays May 7, 2021 Activist investor Edward Bramson has sold his firm’s 6 per cent stake in Barclays, ending a three-year campaign against the bank. Since 2018, Bramson’s fund, Sherborne Investors, pressured Barclays CEO Jes Staley to scale back investment banking, and demanded his removal over his links to US financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but Bramson struggled [...]
BA pilots hail ‘incredible and emotional’ medical aid flight to India May 5, 2021 The British Airways pilots flying an aircraft packed with 27 tonnes of medical aid to India have hailed the hard work that has gone into getting the flight off the ground. The airline said the load included hundreds of oxygen cylinders, plus respirators, blood oxygen saturation monitors and care packages. A total of 1,349 items [...]
Barclays to offer climate vote to investors next year May 5, 2021 Barclays will offer investors a vote on its climate policy at next year’s investor meeting after pressure from activists and shareholders to become greener. The bank will devise extra climate targets in consultation with shareholders, its chairman Nigel Higgins told a webcast investor meeting today. Barclays set itself a target in March 2020 to reach [...]
FTSE ends day with slump as Wall Street’s Nasdaq plunges nearly three per cent May 4, 2021 The FTSE 100 slipped back below the 7,000 point mark by the market close, despite a strong start to the week’s trading after the Bank Holiday weekend. The blue-chip FTSE 100 index fell 0.67 per cent by the end of the day, with banking stocks, including HSBC Holdings, Barclays and Standard Chartered posing the biggest drag on [...]
UK banks provided over $50bn in financing for coal-exposed firms from 2018 to 2020 May 4, 2021 The UK’s biggest banks provided $56bn worth of financing for firms involved in the coal industry between 2018 and 2020, new research today has found. Of the top five banks exposed to the sector, Barclays provided by far the most financing to firms on the Global Coal Exit list, with $27bn. HSBC and Standard Chartered [...]
UK and India free trade deal talks to start in autumn, says minister May 4, 2021 The UK and India will begin talks over a full free trade deal in the autumn that will “double” trade between the two countries, trade minister Liz Truss has said. Truss told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Britain wanted to see India’s tariffs on imported cars and whiskey reduced or removed as part of [...]
India’s Covid crisis makes Barclays and other banks to shift call centre operations back to UK May 3, 2021 Barclays has announced it will shift some of its Indian call centre operations back to the UK as staff in the South-Asian country are struggling to cope with the ongoing Covid-19 crisis. A range of other UK and US banks and companies are mulling to do the same, according to multiple media reports in India [...]
FTSE closes higher as US stocks pause after busy week for earnings April 30, 2021 The FTSE 100 closed higher today as the economic recovery optimism poised the index for its largest monthly gain since November last year. The blue-chip index rose 0.2 per cent, boosted by positive earnings updates from AstraZeneca and Smurfit Kappa. Meanwhile, the mid-cap FTSE 250 also rose by 0.56 per cent. Both indexes have risen [...]
Barclays profit more than doubles to £2.4bn, as it shifts call centres to UK from India April 30, 2021 Barclays’ profit more than doubled in the first quarter despite not releasing cash set aside to cover bad loans from the pandemic like its British rivals. The bank posted a pre-tax profit of £2.4bn for the first three months of the year, up from £923m in the same period a year earlier and beating an [...]