Barclays bank staff revamp gathers pace November 5, 2009 FORMER Citigroup banker Tom King – due to join Barclays Capital next month – is set to become head of investment banking for Europe, the MiddleEast, and Africa. In the latest move in Barclays’ recent management shake-up, King will report to Barclays Capital’s head of global investment banking, Hugh “Skip” McGee. The role is currently [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS November 5, 2009 Association of British InsurersThe ABI has appointed Kerrie Kelly, currently chief executive of the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA), as its new director general, effective from next February. Kelly has led the ICA since 2006, having formerly been CEO of the country’s Financial Planning Association. She is currently a non-executive director at HSBC in Australia, [...]
The City lawyer who argues that banking has become even riskier November 4, 2009 T o David Morley, the phrase “it is better to travel than to arrive” must sound pretty strange, an expression invented only for those unfortunate souls who have not learnt to move at speed. For Morley, who joined top law firm Allen & Overy in 1980 and has led it as senior partner since last [...]
THE LONDON REPORT November 4, 2009 LONDON’S leading shares ended 1.4 per cent higher yesterday, boosted by a rebound from miners and banks, with retailers Next and Marks & Spencer also higher after posting forecast-beating figures. At the close, the FTSE 100 was up 70.68 points at 5,107.89, recouping all of Tuesday’s losses when the index fell 1.3 per cent to [...]
How brand perceptions differ across the pond November 3, 2009 HOW different are British and American perceptions of the same brands? We took a quick look at the BrandIndex UK and US scores of three pairs of brands. Not surprisingly, American Airlines did better in America (average for the last year, plus 14) than in the UK (plus 6), and British Airways did better in [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS November 3, 2009 Gleacher ShacklockThe corporate advisory firm has appointed Peter Alcaraz as a senior adviser, effective from next spring.Alcaraz, who will be tasked with helping to develop the firm’s franchise in the services sector, joins from Close Brothers Corporate Finance, where he was most recently a managing director and head of the services sector team. He has [...]
Myths and reality of the bank shake-up November 3, 2009 AS predictably as day follows night, the myth-making machine spiralled out of control again yesterday. Perhaps the biggest is that the UK banking system is uniquely concentrated. As Citigroup research reveals, this simply is not so: overall UK banking system concentration (using the World Bank’s measure of assets of the biggest three banks as a [...]
Revamp rocks Barclays bank November 3, 2009 BARCLAYS announced the surprise departure of the head of its global retail and commercial banking (GRCB) division yesterday in a management shake-up that will boost the empire overseen by the group’s president Bob Diamond. Barclays said it was splitting up GRCB and that its boss Frits Seegers had resigned as a director and would leave [...]
TIMELINE: HOW BRITAIN’S BANKING SECTOR WENT SOUR November 3, 2009 21 February, 2008Britain passes legislation allowing the government to nationalise Northern Rock after rejecting two private bids. Northern Rock is nationalised months after the Bank of England stepped in to provide support. 21 AprilThe BoE unveils the Special Liquidity Scheme to swap banks' risky mortgage assets for at least £50bn of government debt. 18 SeptemberLloyds [...]
Why insider trading is hard to prove November 3, 2009 LAST month, the FBI smashed an alleged $20m insider trading scheme centring on the New York hedge fund Galleon, when they raided its offices and arrested billionaire financier Raj Rajaratnam and five accused accomplices. In the wake of criticism of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in this country over its percveived toothlessness, the regulator is [...]