First July deficit since 2010 as spending creeps higher August 21, 2013 THE UK posted an unexpected deficit in July, the first for the month since 2010, highlighting the sluggish progress in reductions to spending. Records of the country’s recent public finances, released yesterday, show a relatively small deficit of £62m for last month. In the same month in 2012, the treasury ran a budget surplus of [...]
Bottom Line: Privatise this bank and let it flourish August 21, 2013 LLOYDS suddenly looks like Britain’s least-troubled bank, with soaring shares, a return to profit and almost all of its business focused on core UK markets. Its position is in stark contrast to much of the rest of the sector. RBS is getting a new boss to push the government’s favoured strategy of cutting back investment [...]
Lean back and read the latest City tome on women at the top August 21, 2013 HOT ON the heels of Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s highly publicised book Lean In, a London businesswoman is about to publish her own autobiographical and instructional tome – Heels of Steel. Founder of networking site We Are The City, Vanessa Vallely – a former employee of Barclays, Merrill Lynch and Royal Bank of [...]
City Moves for 22 August 2013 | Who’s switching jobs August 21, 2013 Squire Sanders The law firm has announced the appointment of Mark Thomas as a partner in its financial services practice group. Thomas specialises in structured finance and capital markets. He was most recently at Addleshaw Goddard, where he was head of structured finance. PwC The professional services firm has hired Charlie McMurdie as senior crime [...]
UK banks face another mis-selling scandal August 21, 2013 The Financial Conduct Authority is preparing to set out a compensation scheme for consumers who bought identity theft and credit card protection from York-based life assistance company CPP, Sky News was first to report. British banks will again be hit by a mis-selling scandal, which could see them lose up to £1.5bn. Around a dozen [...]
Tech guru warns that London will lose out on IPOs August 20, 2013 LONDON will continue to lose out on initial public offerings (IPOs) in the technology sector unless banks and investors learn more about these businesses, according to the head of a British ecommerce company hoping to list soon. A lack of specialised analysts and committed investors could prevent new firms from staying in the UK, chief [...]
Rich Ricci and Bob Diamond eye up investment in new exchange August 19, 2013 FORMER Barclays executives Rich Ricci and Bob Diamond could be reunited as investors in an upstart stock exchange based in the City, it emerged yesterday. Aquis, which is aiming to launch this October, yesterday confirmed that it had sold a 30 per cent stake to Warsaw Stock Exchange for £5m. But it is the identity of [...]
Edwards agrees to Atlas Copco tie-up August 19, 2013 SWEDISH engineer Atlas Copco confirmed yesterday that it plans to take Edwards Group private just over a year after the Sussex-based vacuum pump specialist floated on the Nasdaq. Edwards has agreed to the all-cash offer, worth up to $1.6bn (£1.02bn) providing the firm hits earnings goals, and major investors Unitas and CCMP have already given [...]
Edwards up for sale just a year after $1bn float August 18, 2013 BRITISH technology firm Edwards, which listed in the US after struggling to float in London, is in talks about a potential sale to Swedish group Atlas Copco, it was reported this weekend. A $1bn (£640m) sale of the company would end a brief spell as a public firm for the Crawley-based vacuum pump manufacturer, [...]
Exclusive: Banks in push to hire more arts graduates August 15, 2013 BRITAIN’S biggest banks are increasingly hiring humanities graduates at the expense of maths and economics students, City A.M. has learned. Demand for quantitative skills exploded in the boom years, but lenders now want a wider range of staff with an aptitude in areas like critical thinking. At Lloyds the proportion with finance degrees [...]