WOMEN LAWYERS IN THE CITY July 28, 2009 CLARE MCCONNELLPARTNER, STEPHENSON HARWOOD AND CHAIR, ASSOC OF WOMEN SOLICITORS SURVEYS continue to show that the progress of women lawyers in the profession, and into partnership, has stalled. Even in the 21st century it is still true that women shoulder the majority of the responsibility for childcare or care of other dependants even when they [...]
Branson and sheikh go for final frontier July 28, 2009 VIRGIN Galactic’s space flight business is selling a $280m (£170m) stake to Manchester City football club’s Middle Eastern owner. Sir Richard Branson will sell 32 per cent of the company to Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who last month made a £1.5bn profit selling shares in Barclays. Branson aims to have commercial space flights running [...]
PWC BOARD GET THE X-FACTOR TREATMENT IN SURPRISE CONTEST July 28, 2009 RECENT surveys have shown that employees’ sense of job security has improved in recent months, but it seems it is now so high that poking fun at the board is back in vogue. The PwC board were half way through a three-week UK tour last week – in which they met 850 partners – when [...]
UK stocks keep on rallying buoyed by energy climbers July 27, 2009 BUOYANT energy stocks and miners helped Britain’s top share index rise for a record-equalling 11th straight session, though gains were limited by falls on Wall Street after corporate earnings disappointed. The FTSE 100 was up 9.52 points, or 0.2 per cent at 4,586.13, hitting its highest closing level since 5 January. The index has risen [...]
Hypocrisy at the heart of banking policy July 27, 2009 PATHETIC. That is the only way to describe Alistair Darling’s ridiculous, stage-managed, utterly fake “row” with Britain’s top banks yesterday. It is the mark of a desperate, dying government that it feels obliged to resort to such a ridiculous piece of make-believe, rather than engaging in proper policy-making. To demand of the banks that they [...]
BarCap expands Japanese arm July 26, 2009 Barclays Capital (BarCap) has beefed up its Japanese operations, adding around 200 staff ahead of a possible move to larger headquarters in Tokyo. The increased headcount is part of BarCap’s efforts to generate 50 per cent of revenue from outside the UK. Eiji Nakai, chief executive of BarCap in Tokyo said: “To be truly global [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS July 22, 2009 MercerThe consulting and outsourcing business has appointed Monica Santiago as head of its health and benefits business in the UK. Santiago was previously chief operating officer for Mercer’s health and benefits business in Europe and, prior to that, was business leader for Portugal. She takes over her new London-based role from David Levey, who becomes [...]
MPC stands united on QE July 22, 2009 IT WAS a unanimous vote from the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to hold interest rates and keep quantitative easing (QE) at the current level of £125bn, minutes from the July meeting showed yesterday. The minutes of the 8-9 July meeting indicated that while the extension of QE was the central question for [...]
Pharmaceuticals inject more life into the FTSE 100’s rise July 22, 2009 THE FTSE 100 added 0.3 per cent yesterday, extending its winning streak to eight sessions thanks to modest gains on Wall Street and solid second-quarter results from drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline. At the close, the index was 12.56 points higher at 4,493.73, up 8.2 per cent over the past eight sessions. Drug maker Shire was the [...]
Supermarket sweep pushes FTSE to seventh rise in a row July 21, 2009 BRITAIN’S top share index rose for a seventh-straight day yesterday, boosted by supermarkets after a trading update from Wm Morrison, and after strong US quarterly results, with miners also lending support. The FTSE 100 closed 37.55 points higher, or 0.9 per cent, at 4,481.17, following a gain of 1.3 per cent on Monday. The index [...]