Q & A September 16, 2009 Q.WHY HAS BARCLAYS SPUN OFF THESE ASSETS?A.According to Barclays finance director Chris Lucas, the sale will reduce the bank’s exposure to potential deterioration of the assets and give it access to “stable risk-adjusted returns for shareholders over time”. Q.DOES THE SALE REDUCE THE BANK’S RISK PROFILE?A.Not really. Although the bank will be less exposed to [...]
Barclays will dump 7.5bn in risky assets September 16, 2009 BARCLAYS yesterday announced the sale of $12.3bn (£7.5bn) of credit market assets to a newly-established fund called Protium Finance, managed by former Barclays Capital (BarCap) employees, in a bid to reduce its credit market exposure. The deal, a complex piece of financial engineering, was well received by investors but slammed by some analysts and media [...]
Bankers and miners lead the way past the 5,100 mark September 16, 2009 The FTSE 100 hit its highest closing level in a year yesterday, led by banks and miners and spurred by appetite for risky assets as optimism about the pace of global economic recovery intensified. The index closed up 82 points, or 1.6 per cent higher, at 5,124.13 – the highest close since late September last [...]
Lloyds tops list of complaints against high street banks September 15, 2009 LLOYDS Banking Group has emerged as the major UK bank with the highest level of successful complaints made about it by consumers in the first half of the year, according to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). FOS data reveals that 81 per cent of cases settled in the six months to 30 June involving Lloyds [...]
City warns of flaws in living wills proposal September 15, 2009 THE CITY yesterday flagged up flaws in proposals that will force banks to write “living wills” to help regulators wind them up in the event that they collapse.Chancellor Alistair Darling said yesterday that the government was planning to introduce legislation in November which would require banks to make their corporate structures more simple and provide [...]
Lehman and BarCap fight over $8.2bn September 15, 2009 TRUSTEES overseeing the liquidation of Lehman Brothers have accused Barclays Capital of taking $8.2bn (£5bn) more than it should have when it bought the failed bank’s brokerage business a year ago. In court papers filed in a US bankruptcy court yesterday, Lehman Brothers Holdings claimed “critical changes” were made to the sale in between the [...]
THE LONDON REPORT September 15, 2009 The FTSE 100 rose for a third straight session yesterday to close up by 0.5 per cent, boosted by bullish economic data from the US, as oils, miners and banks underpinned the rally. The index ended 23.28 points higher at 5,042.13, after trading as low as 4,996.52 earlier in the session. Energy stocks were higher, [...]
Lehman Bros bondholders may be owed up to 44bn September 14, 2009 THE trustee holders of collapsed Lehman Brothers’ senior bonds said the debt holders may be owed as much as $73bn (£44bn), after losing their investments when the bank filed for bankruptcy protection a year ago, according to court documents. Wilmington Trust Company claims that holders of the senior debt of the failed bank are estimated [...]
ONE YEAR ON, FORMER LEHMAN STAFF SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCES WITH CITY A.M. September 14, 2009 BISHER ARMANAZII was working as a trader in structured indices derivatives in London when Lehman Brothers went under. I was at home on the Sunday and happened to turn on the TV to see the story that the bank would not be receiving a government bailout. I went straight to a bar with a couple [...]
Saudi wealth lures Barclays September 14, 2009 BARCLAYS is planning to push into the private banking arena in Saudi Arabia to take advantage of the concentration of high net worth individuals in the region’s largest economy. Soha Nashaat, chief executive of Barclays private banking in the Middle East and North Africa, said Saudi Arabia was “massive in terms of percentage of GDP [...]