Budget broadly welcomed by businesses, survey says March 28, 2011 CHANCELLOR George Osborne received a boost yesterday as businesses responded positively to last week’s Budget. Almost nine in ten (88 per cent) of corporate respondents said the Budget would aid private sector growth, Barclays Corporate revealed. Meanwhile a snap poll from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) showed that over twice as many, 39 per [...]
Bullish brokers boost banks as energy and mining stocks sag March 28, 2011 BULLISH broker comment helped push the banking sector higher yesterday, as Britain’s top share index neared key technical resistance levels after its recent rally, with commodity stocks weighing on the upside. The FTSE 100 closed 3.73 points, or 0.1 per cent, higher at 5,904.49, near its 50-day moving average of 5,933.83. The index has traded [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS March 28, 2011 Ambition UK Simon Lynch has been appointed as managing director of Ambition UK, the London arm of the boutique recruitment business. Lynch has worked at Ambition since November 2010, having joined as a director in the firm’s Hong Kong office. Previously, Lynch spent 11 years with Michael Page International, where he led the national technology [...]
Southern Cross aims for rent deal March 27, 2011 STRUGGLING care home operator Southern Cross is preparing for “hardball negotiations” with landlords to cut its massive rental bill, a person close to the firm said yesterday. Southern Cross last week wrote to around a third of its landlords to request a switch from quarterly to monthly payments, after taking on KPMG’s Richard Fleming and [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 24, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES BARCLAYS AT CENTRE OF LIBOR INQUIRY Barclays is emerging as a key focus of the US and UK regulatory probe into alleged rigging of benchmark interbank lending rates that are the reference point for $350,000bn in financial products, people familiar with the investigation said. Investigators are probing whether communications between the bank’s traders [...]
Retailers and mining stocks power rebound in the FTSE March 24, 2011 RETAILERS were among the top performers in a rally in Britain’s top share index yesterday that took the FTSE 100 back to levels last seen just before the earthquake in Japan. Results from Kingfisher and Next showed how some retailers can overcome tough trading conditions in the UK. Kingfisher, which hiked its dividend and reported [...]
HSBC’s Gulliver faces opposition over planned £13.3m package March 23, 2011 HSBC ’s proposal to pay its chief executive up to £13.3m this year is likely to meet shareholder opposition, investor representatives said yesterday. The bank’s compensation committee has proposed paying Stuart Gulliver a base salary of £1.25m, a bonus of up to three times that and a long-term performance-based payout six times his base salary. [...]
Glencore close to hiring eight banks for float March 22, 2011 GLENCORE, the Swiss commodity trading giant, is close to hiring eight banks to supervise its planned multi-billion-dollar London and Hong Kong listing, a person familiar with the matter said. Glencore, valued earlier this year by one analyst at about $60bn (£36.7bn), is continuing to prepare for what could be a record London initial public offering [...]
BoE rebuffs SLS payback request March 22, 2011 THE Bank of England has told Barclays and HSBC they cannot repay their remaining exposure to its Special Liquidity Scheme (SLS) early. It is understood it is worried the exit of key members from the scheme could undermine those remaining in it – most importantly state-backed Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland. Barclays [...]
FSA makes up rising costs in higher penalties March 22, 2011 A BUMPER year for enforcement fines means that financial firms will pay less for the FSA’s upkeep despite a ten per cent rise in its costs, the Authority’s business plan for 2011/2012 revealed yesterday. Fees will drop two per cent because revenues from financial penalties doubled from £33.2m in 2009/2010 to £79.1m in the year [...]