Activist investor Ed Bramson suffers heavy defeat in battle for seat on Barclays board May 2, 2019 Activist investor Ed Bramson has suffered a heavy defeat in his battle to win a seat on the Barclays board. Shareholders votes came in at 87.2 per cent against his election, as the US-based investor was only able to amass 12.8 per cent of the vote. Aside from his own 5.5 per cent stake, and factoring [...]
Lloyds Bank ‘prepared for further Brexit uncertainty’ as profits stay flat May 2, 2019 Lloyds Bank is prepared to weather further Brexit uncertainty, the group’s chief executive said today as the bank reported results for the first quarter. Read more: Lloyds Bank handed capital boost by regulator following risk change The figures Profit before tax was flat at £1.6bn, the bank said this morning, while underlying profit was up [...]
City Moves for 2 May – Who’s switching jobs at Santander, Intertrust and Bristows? May 1, 2019 Today's City Moves includes Santander, Intertrust and Bristows. Santander UK Santander UK has announced the appointment of Ben Covey as head of private banking, reporting directly to Charlotte Platts, head of wealth. Ben will take up his position from 1 May and will be responsible for the direction and growth of the private banking proposition [...]
Lloyds Bank handed capital boost by regulator raising chances of more share buybacks May 1, 2019 Lloyds Bank shareholders could be set for higher dividends and another share buyback programme after the UK regulator loosened its risk buffer. The Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) reduced the rate for the “systemic risk buffer” of extra capital the bank needs to hold. Read more: Lloyds Bank to pay £10m to customers [...]
Online advertising continues to grow as UK ad spend hits £24bn April 30, 2019 Online formats are continuing to take the lion’s share of advertising pounds as UK ad spend hit almost £24bn last year, new figures have revealed. Read more: WPP suffers sales drop after ‘significant’ client losses Search and online display advertising pulled in almost £12bn in 2018, more than half of the total spend across all [...]
Restructuring and foreign currency headwinds hammer Santander profits April 30, 2019 Santander saw profits fall by a tenth as the Spanish banking giant kicked on with a major restructuring in the UK and Poland. Read more: Santander and Barclays face lawsuits over film financing schemes The company was also hit by high inflation in Argentina which hampered earnings further, despite customer growth across its core markets [...]
Barclays shares: Optimists see an opportunity April 29, 2019 By Graeme Evans from interactive investor. These results do not impress, but there’s lots going on at Barclays and plenty to interest investors. Without the attention generated by activist investor Edward Bramson, it’s likely that last week’s lacklustre investment banking performance at Barclays (LSE:BARC) may have been passed off as just another quarter blighted by [...]
Natwest online banking outage: Bank apologises as customers unable to access accounts April 29, 2019 Natwest customers have been frozen out of their accounts this morning due to an online outage. The bank confirmed on Twitter that it had been experiencing issues and has been instructing customers to delete temporary internet files and try again. Read more: TSB online banking outage hits customers The outage began at around 5am, according [...]
City forum intervenes in Barclays’ battle with Bramson April 28, 2019 A forum for City investors has intervened in Barclays’ battle with activist investor Edward Bramson, ahead of the bank’s general meeting this week. Investor Forum has written to Barclays in recent weeks at the prompting of major institutional investors to raise a number of concerns, Sky News reported. The news comes before Barclays’ general meeting [...]
City runners shine as thousands turn out for London Marathon April 28, 2019 TENS of thousands of runners took to the streets of the city today in a record-breaking London Marathon. More than 40,000 took part in the event, won by Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge in two hours two minutes 38 seconds – the second fastest time in history and a new course record. Read more: What next for [...]