Sunaga leaves Barclays Japan February 10, 2010 Hideaki Sunaga, Barclay’s co-head of investment banking, has resigned after just one year. Sunaga, who was at Nomura for 20 years, had been brought in to expand Barclays investment banking business in Japan – which he co-lead with Takemi Ando. Barclays declined to comment and it is unclear when Sunaga will be leaving.
Despite its fiscal weakness, dollar remains attractive February 9, 2010 THE US dollar has staged an impressive rally against the euro and sterling. The US is benefiting from safe haven flows as investors ditch the euro over fears of a sovereign debt crisis for Greece that could spread to Portugal, Spain and even to the UK. But are the US’s finances actually any better than [...]
THE LONDON REPORT February 9, 2010 BRITAIN’S top share index closed up yesterday, led higher by miners and banks, but lingering concerns over Europe’s fiscal problems weighed on sentiment. The FTSE 100 ended 19.51 points or 0.4 per cent ahead at 5,111.84, having hit a session high of 5,132.93. Metals prices regained some ground after sharp falls last week, helping mining [...]
OFFICE CHIC GETS A SPORTING MAKEOVER February 9, 2010 HERE in the City, we are used to enjoying state-of-the-art office luxury, so it always comes as a surprise when a landlord manages to offer something quite out of the ordinary when it comes to luring in the tenants. David Saul, the managing director of serviced office firm Business Environment, is no stranger to bizarre [...]
Cazenove chief set to quit February 9, 2010 The chief executive of JPMorgan Cazenove, Nuguib Kheraj, is set to leave his job next month because the US bank taking over the UK broker has failed to find him a mutually suitable role. The former Barclays director is a favourite to succeed Lloyds chief Eric Daniels, if he leaves.
Barclays boss hits out at US plan for banks February 9, 2010 The chief executive of Barclays yesterday hit out at US President Barack Obama’s proposals to make the financial system “safer” by scaling down the size of the banks and stopping them from carrying out riskier trading activities. John Varley told the House of Commons Treasury Committee that a curb on banks’ abilities to carry out [...]
Slow start to 2010 for hedge funds as markets tread water February 9, 2010 HEDGE funds produced their first negative return for 10 months in January as long-only and macro strategies suffered, according to the TrimTabs/BarclayHedge database. The California-based research company said yesterday that hedge funds lost eight basis points on average for the month after a buoyant 2009. Portfolios holding shares for the long term dropped 2.6 per [...]
Bank of America names global capital co-heads February 9, 2010 BANK of America Corp, the largest US bank by assets, yesterday said it appointed Alastair Borthwick and Lisa Carnoy as co-heads of its global capital markets business. The reshuffling of the unit, which was an earnings powerhouse for the bank as it battled losses in consumer-lending businesses last year, follows a shake-up of top management [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS February 9, 2010 ICAP Bank of America Merrill Lynch adds ICAP to its “Europe 1” buy list saying its current share price ignores the company’s strong portfolio of assets. Despite its revised earnings guidance for the third quarter, it believes its recent share price fall has been overdone. It notes half ICAP’s profits will come from electronic businesses [...]
MILLION-DOLLAR MAN THAIN LEARNS ERROR OF HIS PRICEY OFFICE WAYS February 8, 2010 HAPPY days for John Thain, the former Merrill Lynch chief executive who demonstrated yesterday that not only has he managed to stage an impressive comeback on Wall Street, but has actually learnt a lesson on the way as well. Thain, of course, is best remembered among the financial community for the dual distinctions of having [...]