Euro exuberance pushes the FTSE near three-month high October 27, 2011 BRITAIN’S top share index jumped to a near three-month high yesterday as bullish investors uncorked their champagne bottles and toasted Europe’s plan to tackle its debt crisis. The upbeat news from Europe boosted appetite for riskier assets such as banking and commodity stocks, which helped the UK’s benchmark index surge 160.58 points or 2.9 per [...]
Barclays to offer 90pc mortgages October 26, 2011 BARCLAYS launched a new bid to entice prospective house-buyers back to the market yesterday by offering no-fee mortgages needing only a ten per cent deposit. The bank has refused to offer 90 per cent loan-to-value mortgages since 2008 when it pulled them during the financial crisis, but is now following rivals such as NatWest and [...]
London lets the world in October 26, 2011 TWENTY-FIVE years ago today the doors of the London Stock Exchange were blown wide open. In one sweeping moment of market deregulation, London’s horizons suddenly broadened, and money flowed into the Square Mile. Outside investment broke up the LSE’s boys’ club and fixed commission charges for brokers, which effectively killed competition, were scrapped. The brainchild [...]
Luminar leaves the dancefloor October 26, 2011 NIGHTCLUB operator Luminar said yesterday it is entering administration proceedings, just a month after telling the market that trading at its Oceana and Liquid venues had stabilised. Luminar said that Lloyds, RBS and Barclays had decided not to extend the waiver on certain covenants related to a three-year banking facility, meaning that the terms of [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS October 26, 2011 Chaucer Syndicates Mark Wood (pictured) has been appointed as chairman of Chaucer Syndicates, the specialist insurance group that underwrites risk at Lloyd’s of London. Wood, who replaces Bob Deutsch, was previously deputy chairman and chief executive of Paternoster UK, chief executive of Prudential’s UK and European insurance businesses, and UK chief executive of AXA. In [...]
FTSE 100 climbs on hopes EU summit will tackle crisis October 26, 2011 BRITAIN’S leading share index last night reached its highest closing level for two-and-half months. Defensive stocks performed well as investors awaited the outcome of a European Union summit, which opened last night, to resolve the two-year-old sovereign debt crisis. Investors also rewarded companies reporting strong figures in a patchy quarterly results season, with BG Group [...]
Peugeot to cut 6,000 jobs after profit warning October 26, 2011 French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen, beset by gloom in European showrooms, has warned its core business would make barely any money this year and announced 6,000 job losses to cut costs. Setting a bleak tone for a slew of earnings reports from European car makers this week, PSA said pricing pressure and falling demand in [...]
SERCO WINS NEW BORIS BIKE CONTRACT October 25, 2011 Support services firm Serco yesterday signed a £50m agreement to support the expansion of TfL’s Barclays Cycle Hire scheme into East London. The contract will run until 2015 and include the design, operation and installation of the scheme in Tower Hamlets, plus new docking stations to serve the Westfield shopping centre in West London. Serco [...]
EU summit optimism won’t last for long October 25, 2011 FOREX conditions are choppy for euro traders, with yesterday’s moves indicative of the jittery markets. Upon the news that the Ecofin conference won’t take place, euro-dollar quickly dropped 0.6 per cent. Twitter feeds across the world were swamped with presumptions that the full emergency heads-of-government summit was also cancelled. Euro-dollar rebounded, as it became clear [...]
Barclays offloads Russian retail unit to Igor Kim October 25, 2011 Barclays has agreed to sell its Russian retail and commercial banking operations to local banker Igor Kim. Barclays said its Barclays Bank LLC Russian division had gross assets of £513m as of the end of September 2011. It added that the sale of the business would not have any material impact on its earnings or [...]