RBS finalising plans for bonus pot of £305m for 2019 February 1, 2020 Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is set to pay out a reduced bonus pot of just over £300m for 2019. RBS and its majority shareholder, which is the government with a 62 per cent stake, has agreed a bonus pool worth around £305m for last year, according to Sky News. It would be the lowest [...]
Brexit day is here – but does the rest of the world even care? January 31, 2020 Today is the day that many have dreaded, many have dreamed of and a lot thought might never come. At 11pm, just as the first pubs begin to close, the United Kingdom will quietly slip out of a side door to exit the European Union, ending our membership of a club we’ve been in for [...]
French and Italian economies shrink as Eurozone slows January 31, 2020 The French and Italian economies both unexpectedly contracted in the final quarter of the year as the struggling Eurozone caps off a year of weak growth. France’s economy – the second-biggest in Europe – shrank 0.1 per cent quarter on quarter in the final three months of the year, according to official statistics. Economists had [...]
Listed firms need public flogging January 31, 2020 The £18.5 trillion in assets managed by members of the Investor Forum would cover a fair few shopping trips to Poundland, and buy its parent’s shares hundreds of times over — but will public market shareholders get the chance? That’s one of the questions indirectly prompted by the forum’s latest annual review, which highlights the [...]
Law firms lead Stonewall’s top LGBT-inclusive employers January 30, 2020 City law firms are some of this year’s most inclusive employers for the LGBT community, with 15 topping Stonewall’s employers of the year. Legal organisations were the second most inclusive sector, with fifteen firms on the list. Last year’s winners Pinsent Masons topped the private sector employers at fourth place. Mayer Brown and the Solicitors Regulation [...]
Barclays takes a stake in digital receipts startup Flux January 29, 2020 Barclays will today take its relationship with digital receipts startup Flux one step further by acquiring a minority stake in the London tech firm. The startup said Barclays will also soon begin an expansion of its ongoing partnership with Flux to reach its entire UK mobile banking customer base, after a successful trial period on [...]
‘Pack of cards would have started to tumble’ if Barclays failed to secure Qatar cash, court hears January 28, 2020 Barclays would have been left in a dire position if it had failed to get Qatar to commit to two multi-billion pound financial crisis fundraisings, the Old Bailey heard today. A barrister for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) today began the closing argument for the prosecution in the landmark trial of three senior former Barclays [...]
Downing Street unveils Taskforce Europe for EU trade talks January 27, 2020 The Prime Minister’s sherpa David Frost will head up trade talks with the EU following the UK’s exit this Friday, Downing Street has confirmed. Frost, who secured the 11th hour withdrawal agreement with Brussels that paved the way for Commons approval for a final deal, will head up a “small and agile” team of around [...]
Varadkar: The EU has the upper hand in Brexit trade talks January 27, 2020 Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar feels the EU will have an advantage in the upcoming trade deal talks between the UK and the bloc. Varadkar used a sports analogy to explain the EU has a “stronger team” than Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s UK, due to its larger population and market size. The Irish PM is [...]
Coronavirus death toll hits 81 as cases spread January 27, 2020 The death toll from coronavirus climbed to 81 today as the Chinese government extended the Lunar New Year holiday while it struggled to cope with the outbreak. The number of confirmed cases rose roughly 30 per cent to 2,744, with about half of them in Hubei province, whose capital is Wuhan, where the outbreak is [...]