Bankers: further pay curbs will cripple the City August 8, 2010 BANKERS are warning politicians and regulators they risk an exodus of talent from London if they put further curbs on pay in response to rising bonus levels. New ONS figures show financial sector bonuses in the five-month period between December and April in the last financial year were £10bn, up from £8bn in 2008. The [...]
The late-night bank manager is planning a High Street revolution August 8, 2010 THE revolution in High Street banking has begun. That’s the bold claim of Craig Donaldson, chief executive of Metro Bank, the first addition to Britain’s retail banking scene in 100 years. And ground zero is the corner of High Holborn and Southampton Row, where its inaugural branch opened a couple of weeks ago. “The revolution has [...]
IHG eyes higher profit August 8, 2010 HOTEL group InterContinental Hotels (IHG) is expected to reveal a surge in profits tomorrow thanks to the return of the business traveller. Analysts expect the group, which owns the Holiday Inn chain, to unveil first half operating profits of $205m (£128m), a rise of 14.5 per cent. The sharp rise in profits is down to [...]
THE TIPSTER August 8, 2010 LAST week, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) released positive earnings, which followed upbeat performances from HSBC, Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group, indicating a recovery of the UK banking sector. An inverse head and shoulders bullish pattern is noted on daily charts of RBS and an important level of 49.7p has been broken, signalling further gains. [...]
Barclays set to leave UK if it’s broken-up August 5, 2010 BARCLAYS mounted a staunch defence of “big banking” yesterday as its first-half performance failed to impress analysts, who described the hefty profit boost as “low quality”. Chief executive John Varley used his results speech to warn the government against breaking up large institutions into separate investment and retail banks. Varley argued FTSE 100 companies needed [...]
BarCap makes lion’s share of profit despite revenue drop August 5, 2010 PROFIT at Barclays Capital made up 87 per cent of the banking group’s overall earnings, though much of its £3.4bn profit was due to unexpected one-off items and credit changes. While pre-tax profit for the half had almost trebled compared to the first half of 2009, this includes a £851m gain on its own credit. [...]
Barclays August 5, 2010 WHAT a let-down. Barclays’ first-half numbers were like a huge picnic hamper that turns out to hold a couple of stale scotch eggs. Investors quickly saw through the headline pre-tax profit of £3.9bn, which was 13 per cent ahead of consensus. The number was flattered by a strong decline in writedowns to £3bn, a large [...]
BoE holds both rates and QE August 5, 2010 MONETARY policy remained frozen yesterday at ultra-loose levels as the Bank of England chose to keep interest rates at their current historic low of 0.5 per cent and maintained its target to boost the money supply at £200bn. Despite strong economic growth in the second quarter and inflation well above the two per cent target, [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS August 5, 2010 FTSE Group The global index provider has appointed Sudir Raju as managing director for its custom index business. Raju has worked for Dow Jones and Stoxx Indexes since 2004, latterly as leader of the Stoxx custom index business. He has a strong technical background with experience extending across index design, production, reviews and operations, as [...]
FTSE ends lower as Barclays leads banking sector retreat August 5, 2010 BRITAIN’S top shares closed down yesterday, with Barclays leading banking shares lower after it posted first-half numbers and downbeat US weekly jobless claims data later in the day only adding to the downward pressure. The FTSE 100 closed down 20.38 points, or 0.4 per cent, at 5,365.78, having fallen back from a session high of [...]