City’s competitive edge is at stake April 10, 2011 Hands off, Mayor Bloomberg: Barclays is ours. And so is HSBC. The feverish media speculation even has Nicholas Sarkozy in on the act, trying to lure the headquarters of banks over the Channel. London obviously has no God-given right to be the banking headquarters rather than New York or Hong Kong or Paris; we have [...]
Three bankers defect from Barclays Wealth April 10, 2011 THREE Barclays Wealth bankers have quit the firm to join boutique wealth management service Vestra Wealth. Andrew Palmer, Bandish Gudka and Oliver da Cunha have all been hired as portfolio managers in Vestra’s London office in a move that will be seen as a slap in the face for the bigger bank. The team managed [...]
Triton buys German engineer April 10, 2011 German private equity firm Triton has snapped up engineering firm Dywidag Systems International (DSI) for around €370m (£327m). Dywidag, which worked on Wembley Stadium, has been owned by lenders Barclays and Bank of America Merrill Lynch since a debt for equity swap last year. Triton and Dywidag signed a sale and purchase agreement at the start [...]
Hurdle for Barclays’ hotel bid April 10, 2011 Attempts by the Barclay brothers to take control of the Maybourne Hotel Group have hit a snag, after a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund bought up debts linked to the firm. 1Malaysia Development Fund is thought to have paid £50m for debts held by the Irish government against shares owned by one of Maybourne’s biggest investors, [...]
Barclays “most at risk” from bank reforms April 8, 2011 Barclays is most at risk from a government appointed commission’s push to reform the sector by protecting and ring-fencing ordinary savers from risky investment banking, a poll showed. Six out of 11 analysts and fund managers polled said Barclays had the most to lose if the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) proposes on Monday that [...]
Barclays to add €1.3bn to Spanish unit’s capital April 7, 2011 THE Spanish arm of Barclays is to undertake a €1.3bn (£1.1bn) capital hike to meet new Bank of Spain minimum solvency ratios, the bank said yesterday. The parent bank will subscribe to the entire increase, a spokesman for Barclays Spain said. “The board approved the capital increase to meet new capital requirements in Spain,” said [...]
Banks said to be petrified by ICB report April 7, 2011 EXECUTIVES at Barclays are preparing for a “disaster” scenario when the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) releases its interim report on Monday, which could involve an ultra hard-line ring-fencing of bank functions. Banks are said to be “petrified” that the report could signal a major industry overhaul. In pre-briefings this week, analysts have been told [...]
Nick Clegg has got it wrong yet again April 6, 2011 IT seems that Nick Clegg specialises in making unsubstantiated statements. He said yesterday that “who you know is increasingly becoming more important that what you know” when it comes to securing a job in the City as well as in politics, the media and other professions. The key phrase here is “becoming increasingly important.” We [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS April 6, 2011 SWIP William Low has been appointed as head of global equities at Scottish Widows Investment Partnership’s (SWIP) International Equities team. Low, who joins from a 15-year tenure as director and portfolio manager at Blackrock, will be based in SWIP’s Edinburgh office and will be responsible for driving the firm’s global equity strategy across a range [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS April 6, 2011 BURBERRY Nomura rates the luxury retailer “neutral” with a target price of £12. The broker expects the firm’s half-year trading update on 19 April to show a 14 per cent rise in like-for-like retail sales, which will make up 70 per cent of overall sales. While Nomura expects another vintage year from Burberry, it has [...]