Banks face $200bn US subprime suit September 4, 2011 LENDERS were dealt a heavy blow on Friday as a US federal agency filed 17 lawsuits against banks for allegedly mis-selling securities based on mortgages in the run-up to the financial crisis. Shares in Bank of America, the worst-hit, tumbled more than eight per cent on the news. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees [...]
Bank lawsuit looms large over the equity markets September 4, 2011 THIS morning’s direction for the markets will be dominated by the news which came out late on Friday evening that a US regulator is suing 17 financial institutions for mis-selling billions of dollars’ worth of mortgage bonds, which ultimately proved toxic when the US housing market collapsed. The targets included not only major US banks [...]
Barcap poaches Morgan Stanley banker September 2, 2011 Barclays Capital (Barcap) has poached Andrew Richards from Morgan Stanley in Europe to head the bank’s private equity coverage in Asia Pacific, two sources told Reuters. Richards, who will be a managing director at Barcap, is expected to fill a position that has been vacant since Takumi Tanaka, a former Lehman and Nomura banker, left [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS September 1, 2011 Brooks Madonald Funds The fund management arm of Brooks Macdonald Group has appointed Mark Watson as new business development manager. Watson, based in Brooks Macdonald’s London office in Mayfair, will develop relationships with IFAs, discretionary fund managers and other business professionals to promote BMF’s fund proposition. He joins from Zurich Assurance Company, where he worked [...]
Bank bounce offsets mining slump to drag FTSE upward September 1, 2011 A BOUNCE back by banks hauled the UK’s leading share index higher yesterday, with earlier falls reversed in the afternoon after stronger than expected manufacturing data allayed fears over the health of the US economy, ahead of a key jobs report. At the close, the FTSE 100 was up 24.12 points or 0.5 per cent [...]
FTSE down as miners struggle but banks rally September 1, 2011 The FTSE 100 failed to track gains on Wall Street and in Asia overnight as the mining sector pegged the index back. Traders and investors were digesting a raft of economic data from across the globe and assessing whether the economic recovery was gaining traction. Miners were hit by figures from China showing that its [...]
Banking profits face Vickers hit August 31, 2011 BRITAIN’S banks could see earnings slashed by nearly a third due to reforms proposed by John Vickers and his Independent Commission on Banking (ICB), analysts have said. But they will at least have several years to implement the reforms. An aide to Nick Clegg has told City A.M. that despite fiery rhetoric from Vince Cable, [...]
Bank reforms missing the big picture August 31, 2011 IT is hard to know whether to laugh or whether to cry about the latest round of banker-bashing, fuelled as ever by Vince Cable, who always knows exactly what the public wants to hear, though rarely what the economy actually needs. The biggest problem, as ever, is that the argument about the Independent Commission on [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 31, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES TOBACCO TRADE GROUP CHIEF QUITS The head of the UK tobacco industry’s main trade body has resigned after failing to persuade the coalition government to rescind anti-tobacco measures introduced under Labour. Christopher Ogden will step down in October following a review of the organisation’s structure initiated by its members, British American Tobacco, Imperial [...]
WHAT DO THE BANKS SAY ABOUT THE RINGFENCE? August 31, 2011 LLOYDS Lloyds has taken the most pro-ringfence stance of all the banks – and argues that almost all of Lloyds’ operations should be inside the fence. Chief executive António Horta-Osório (pictured) argues that a ringfence should form a crucial part of a resolution plan to allow regulators to wind up failing banks in an orderly way. [...]