BUSINESS AS USUAL AS BORIS BIKES TO CANNES March 8, 2011 IF you happened to be in Cannes yesterday afternoon, you would have been treated to the sight of a middle-aged, straw-haired man riding a Boris Bike into the centre of town. On closer inspection, you would have spotted that that figure was, in fact, the London Mayor Boris Johnson, who was livening up the MIPIM [...]
Goldman Sachs hawk steps into Sentance’s Bank role March 7, 2011 Goldman Sachs economist Ben Broadbent was appointed as the latest Bank of England rate setter yesterday, with many observers expecting him to support the move for higher rates. Broadbent will replace outgoing chief hawk Andrew Sentance in June. Sentance has consistently voted for higher interest rates since June 2010. Broadbent’s team of economists at Goldman [...]
Bonus row reignited as Barclays publishes pay March 7, 2011 BARCLAYS has revealed that it awarded its top five non-board executives total pay of £28m last year, with the heads of its investment bank Barclays Capital Jerry del Missier and Rich Ricci pocketing over £10m each. The bank also confirmed it will pay current chief executive Bob Diamond £6.5m in an all-share bonus in addition [...]
Ignorance is bliss for bank bonus critics March 7, 2011 THE Treasury might be wishing it could close the barn door today after Barclays’ revealed that the bank’s top executives are in line for pay-outs of up to £14m each, provided they meet performance targets. Jerry del Missier and Rich Ricci, the executives in question, run Barclays Capital, the bank’s investment banking division, and have [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS March 7, 2011 Nomura Holdings The Asian investment bank has made a number of changes to its management team. David Benson, Nomura’s former chief risk officer, will become vice chairman of Nomura Holdings. Wholesale president and COO Jesse Bhattal (pictured) will become deputy president of Nomura Holdings and CEO of the Wholesale division, and Yasuo Kashiwagi, currently senior [...]
Diamond to be paid £6.5m bonus March 7, 2011 Bob Diamond, the new chief executive of Barclays, will be paid a bonus of £6.5m for last year, according to Reuters sources. Barclays will reveal remuneration details for executives later on Monday, before the full release of its annual report. Diamond is one of the highest paid bankers in Europe and could prove to be [...]
Shareholders query London base for HSBC March 6, 2011 HSBC shareholders are becoming increasingly restless over the bank’s domicile, with the UK bank levy a particular bugbear due to the proportion of its incomes earned abroad. The bank has said that the levy will cost it $600m (£369m) this year, between the £315m and £390m forecasts for RBS and Barclays respectively, despite HSBC deriving [...]
SNOW’S THE STAIR MASTER IN THE RACE OF THE THOUSAND STEPS March 3, 2011 HERE’S a story with legs: the results of the third annual Vertical Rush race up the 920 dizzying steps of City skyscraper Tower 42 in aid of housing charity Shelter. Setting off in hourly slots, 1,200 chip-timed runners – including racers from Legal & General, Schroders, Threadneedle, Tullett Prebon and KPMG – vied to see [...]
Northern Foods war heats up March 2, 2011 Chicken tycoon Ranjit Singh Boparan has been forced to extend the deadline on his £342m offer for Northern Foods after just 23 per cent of the firm’s shareholders other than himself accepted the bid by yesterday’s cut-off. The delay gives rival Greencore and its adviser Barclays Capital two more weeks to prepare a counter-offer in [...]
Lisbon hangs on in debt sale March 2, 2011 PORTUGAL managed to sell off €1bn (£850m) worth of debt at a short-dated bond auction yesterday, with one-year yields rising to 4.06 per cent from 3.99 per cent for similarly dated bonds at its last sale. But with the scale of European Central Bank (ECB) intervention unclear, markets are still waiting to see a comprehensive [...]