Gymbox raises £17m to finance expansion plans across the UK July 7, 2014 GYMBOX, the US-style fitness club chain that offers classes including Yoga Rave, has raised £17m to open more sites in the capital and expand into other UK cities. Business Growth Fund, an investment fund backed by the UK’s five largest banks – Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS and Standard Chartered – is providing the money in [...]
Auditors want power to monitor firms’ culture as well as finances to avoid scandals July 6, 2014 Businesses should launch a full- scale review of their corporate cultures if they want to stop future crises and scandals taking place, the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors (CIIA) said today. The audit industry should be given sweeping new powers covering behaviour in all parts of businesses, as well as the traditional role of monitoring [...]
London report: Housing data to show soaring market levelling July 6, 2014 Housing prices are likely to be in focus this week, as two surveys show prices are still rising, though the market is levelling off. The RICS survey, published today, is expected to show less growth than in past months. Barclays’ Armela Mancellari said: “We expect the overall balance to have edged down [...]
City of London recruitment drops despite UK job market boom July 5, 2014 Cost cutting at European and UK investment banks has led to a fall in new vacancies at the City of London, as the capital's financial district lags behind the country's recent roaring employment growth. The latest monthly analysis by international recruiter Astbury Marsden points to an 11 per cent drop in new vacancies at the City [...]
Customers complain after Barclays system failure July 4, 2014 This afternoon, customers of Barclays bank were unable to withdraw cash from machines or use their online banking service. The problem, which is thought to have arisen at around 3pm, has resulted in a surge of complaints on Twitter. In response, Barclays bank posted a tweet letting customers know that they were dealing [...]
St Antony tells Barclays executives to go back to school to avoid fresh scandals July 3, 2014 HUNDREDS of managing directors are going back to school for courses on compliance, risk and crime prevention, Barclays announced yesterday, in the wake of a series of scandals which have devastated the bank’s reputation. Barclays is spending tens of millions of pounds on a new tie-up with the Cambridge Judge Business School. It hopes all [...]
Simon Fraser is fighting for hearts and minds at the Investor Forum July 2, 2014 Does someone at the new body set up to promote investor long-termism have a bizarre sense of humour? That was one interpretation of yesterday’s confirmation that Simon Fraser, former global chief investment officer of Fidelity, would be its first chairman. After all, Fraser was until recently a board member at the bete [...]
City Moves for 03 July 2014 | Who’s switching jobs July 2, 2014 BLM The risk and insurance law firm has appointed Guy Munnoch as special and strategic adviser to its executive board. He is a former chief executive of Zurich Southern Africa and Zurich UK, and has also held positions at Aviva and Allianz. Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking Marc Denjean has been appointed managing director, head of [...]
Silicon Roundabout guru Tim Luke back to Barclays’ investment bank July 1, 2014 Top technology analyst Tim Luke is heading back to Barclays this month, the bank announced last night, after three years as an adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron. Luke has been re-hired by the bank as managing director and vice-president of technology, media and telecomms (TMT) in New York. He worked at Lehman Brothers and [...]
Goldman Sachs fined for failing dark pool customers July 1, 2014 Goldman Sachs was yesterday fined $800,000 (£466,200) after investors using its dark pool trading platform received a deal on their transactions. Hundreds of thousands of trades over an eight-day period in 2011 were processed at a price which was not the best on offer, meaning customers lost out, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) said. The [...]