Barclays to end its sponsorship of Boris Bikes December 10, 2013 BARCLAYS will not renew its sponsorship of the London bicycle hire scheme when it ends in 2015, it confirmed last night. The bank signed a deal worth £50m to sponsor the bikes, named colloquially after London mayor Boris Johnson, in 2010. But in a joint statement with Transport for London, Barclays said it will not [...]
Barclays make non-US stocks their top pick for 2014. Here’s why December 10, 2013 Barclays say that the big story of 2013 was the re-pricing of equities versus bonds, as equities soared against a background of plunging bond values. Now a mixed global outlook for 2014 gives opportunities to seize advantage of cheap European and emerging market equities, according to Barclay's head of equity research, Stu Linde. Marco Outlook [...]
Barclays equity boss Dean to take sabbatical December 9, 2013 BARCLAYS announced unexpectedly yesterday that Sam Dean, its highly popular and experienced head of equity capital markets in Europe, is taking a sabbatical for family reasons. The news comes at the end of a year during which Dean’s team enjoyed prominence in a number of transactions, acting in the privatisation of Royal Mail and on [...]
Kentz’s shares surge on £266m US acquisition December 9, 2013 ENGINEERING firm Kentz saw its share price soar by nearly 13 per cent yesterday after it unveiled a $435m (£265.6m) acquisition of US firm Valerus. Kentz, which was the subject of a failed takeover approach earlier this year, had long said it wanted to grow its engineering arm in order to bid for more engineering, [...]
Barclays sees European oil sector bounce in 2014 December 9, 2013 The European oil sector will bounce back from its 10-year low against the FTEU300, according to Barclays. The sector has underperformed the wider European market by 25 per cent since 2012. Following five years of massive capital expenditure Barclays see a turning point for the sector both operationally and financially. The bank forecasts aggregate production [...]
Ex Barclays chief Bob Diamond returns December 9, 2013 Former Barclays chief executive plans his City comeback BOB DIAMOND is launching a new investment vehicle in London to fund a venture into African banking, his first big move since leaving Barclays in last year’s Libor scandal. City commentators welcomed the investment banker’s return, 18 months after he bore the brunt of the blame for [...]
Investors set to bankroll firms’ recovery plans December 8, 2013 BRITAIN’S recovery will prompt a surge in firms asking investors for more money to fund growth, Capita Asset Services predicted today. Since the crisis companies have increased the amount of cash they return to investors on the basis that this was a better use of the funds than investing them in a low-growth period. From [...]
Lenders predict another boom in legal bills December 8, 2013 BANKS expect their litigation costs to rise another 30 per cent in the coming year, after already spending an extra 60 per cent in the last 12 months, according to research from Legal Business. The study found 84 per cent of respondents have had to increase legal budgets since the financial crisis, and the level [...]
Best of the Brokers for 09 December 2013 December 8, 2013 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com PENNON GROUP Barclays has upgraded the group to “overweight” with a target price of 730p after deciding the business would deliver compound dividend growth of seven per cent a year up until 2020. Analyst said this was due to new visibility from its [...]
Car sales up in Britain for 21st month in a row December 5, 2013 BRITS bought seven per cent more new cars in November than they did a year ago, industry figures showed yesterday, in the latest sign that the car market is racing. New car registrations rose to 159,581 units in the month, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. The pace accelerated from a four [...]