BLAIR WOOS LAWYERS WITH FOND MEMORIES November 22, 2010 CITY law firm Clifford Chance last night played host to a gathering of 250 of the City’s most prominent names in a one-off chance to hear from former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair blitzed into the event and had to run off to another engagement immediately afterwards, but in between he found time to cover [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS November 22, 2010 Matrix Group Matrix, the financial services firm, has announced the appointment of a new chief operating officer for asset management: Paul Bramley. Bramley has worked in financial services for more than 20 years, including occupying previous COO and chief financial officer roles. He is also a qualified chartered accountant and has worked at NatWest Markets, [...]
Revealed: The UK’s Irish risk November 22, 2010 THREE major UK banks – RBS, Barclays and Lloyds – together havemore than €100bn (£860m) of exposure in Ireland, according to data seen by City A.M. Morgan Stanley conducted research on the levels of exposure in the three “peripheral” Eurozone countries, Ireland, Portugal and Greece. Unsurprisingly “the largest exposures are clustered in UK banks”, the [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 22, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES ROK WAS WARNED ON OUTLOOK Senior executives at Rok, the failed building group, were warned the company’s public statements risked misleading investors by failing to identify the extent or source of its problems. The board of directors was contacted by Ashley Martin, at the time the suspended finance director, after Rok released a [...]
Barclays and Lehman wrap up US lawsuit November 22, 2010 LEHMAN Brothers’ lawsuit against Barclays over its $1.75bn (£1.09bn) purchase of the bankrupt group’s assets draws to a close today, as lawyers on both sides submit their final arguments on whether Barclays made a secret windfall on the sale. Lehman, which filed for the world’s biggest bankruptcy in September 2008, is expected to claim Barclays [...]
Andy’s flying start follows Downing Street knock-up November 21, 2010 ANDY MURRAY began his Barclays ATP World Tour campaign with a straight sets win over Robin Soderling before revealing he’d prepared for the tournament by having a knock around with Prime Minister David Cameron inside Downing Street. Mr Cameron had hoped to play in the garden but the weather was too bad. So he took [...]
Murray sees off Soderling November 21, 2010 BRITISH No1 Andy Murray is off and running at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London after downing Sweden’s Robin Soderling in straight sets. A bumper crowd of 17,500 were treated to a near faultless display from the 23-year-old, who took just an hour and 20 minutes to vanquish this season’s beaten French Open [...]
ABN Amro profit rises on lower charges November 19, 2010 ABN AMRO, the state-owned rump of the former leading Dutch-based international bank, has reported a jump in underlying net profit thanks to higher interest income, lower charges and a gain on its debt buy-back. However, after some 1.4bn euros (£1.2bn) in costs arising from the mandatory sale of part of the Dutch commercial bank, separation, [...]
GM pulls off record float November 18, 2010 GENERAL MOTORS closed 3.6 per cent higher yesterday after pulling off the biggest IPO in US history. The stock closed at $34.19, up from its float price of $33 a share. Frantic trading throughout the day saw more than 100m shares change hands, out of the total of 478m placed, while financial advisers struggled to [...]
How to turn Cameron’s vision of an entrepreneurial decade into a reality November 18, 2010 DAVID Cameron has called on the nation’s “doers-and-grafters, inventors and entrepreneurs” to save us from our troubled finances. He’s not wrong. According to research commissioned by Enterprise UK, a rise of just one per cent in self-employment rates could boost the UK’s GDP by around 1.5 per cent and add approximately £22bn to the UK economy. [...]