Bank shake-up puts EU firmly in charge November 2, 2009 AS power shifts go, this one takes some beating. After months of listening to what the government, the Bank of England and the FSA have had to say about the future of British banking, it turns out that the body with real power was based a little further away from home. For this morning, barring [...]
Branson set to swoop on British bank assets November 2, 2009 VIRGIN is preparing to swoop on a string of UK banking assets to be put up for sale as part of a European Commission inquiry into competition in the sector, Sir Richard Branson confirmed yesterday. “We do plan to create a Virgin bank and we will be interested in looking at the three banks that [...]
Virgin Media: Why City A.M. is wrong about TV market November 1, 2009 IN his article last Friday about the pay TV market, City A.M.’s David Crow suggested that, by forcing Sky to wholesale its premium sports and movie channels to competing pay TV retailers, media regulator Ofcom is punishing Sky’s success. He compares Sky’s investment in sports and movies to car maker Toyota’s investment in hybrid fuel [...]
A second dose of the fabulous freakish truth October 28, 2009 SUPERFREAKONOMICSBY STEPHEN DUBNER AND STEVEN LEVITTPENGUIN, £20.00 WRITING a sequel to one of best-selling pop economics books of the last decade was always going to be hard. And it took Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner more than four years to create Superfreakonomics, the “freakquel” to their original collaboration, Freakonomics. Like the original, Superfreakonomics [...]
We need to shake up consumer banking October 28, 2009 YESTERDAY was the 80th anniversary of the Great Crash of 1929. Like the present crisis, which has fortunately turned out to be much less severe, the bubble of the 1920s was caused primarily by errors in monetary policy and a misunderstanding of the way the economy works. There was too much cheap money sloshing around [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING October 27, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES JCB FACES FIRST ANNUAL LOSS AFTER GLOBAL DEMAND FALLSJCB faces a struggle to avoid its first annual loss this year, its chief executive warned, as he cautioned that he saw no recovery in demand for construction equipment outside of China next year. Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the UK’s largest maker of earth-moving [...]
RAPPER TALKS CRIME, DRUGS AND THE CUT AND THRUST OF BUSINESS October 27, 2009 FRESH from interviewing Warren Buffett, otherwise known as the “Sage of Omaha” or one of the most successful investors the world has ever seen, the Beeb’s Evan Davis yesterday turned his microphone on a different type of guest: rapper 50 Cent. “Fifty”, who’s recently co-authored a business book called The 50th Law, was happy to [...]
LSE CHIEF XAVIER ROLET PONDERS AN OVERHAUL OF INTERIOR DESIGN October 26, 2009 XAVIER Rolet, the dynamic new top dog over at the London Stock Exchange, just can’t seem to ease up in his quest to stamp his mark on the exchange. In the past few months, Rolet has been very busy – commencing talks to buy up rival Turquoise, axing the LSE’s long-standing M&A and PR advisers, [...]
The tributes pour in as City A.M. gets to 1,000 October 22, 2009 GORDON BROWNPrime Minister“Congratulations to City A.M. on reaching a thousand editions. Your paper has kept both Westminster and the City informed at a time of great turbulence in the world economy.” SIR VICTOR BLANKFormer chairman, Lloyds Banking“City A.M. has developed into a quality newspaper which sparks boardroom debate with its insight and analysis. It is [...]
Goldman boss speaks up for bonus culture October 21, 2009 LORD Griffiths, the vice-chairman of investment bank Goldman Sachs, has put his head over the parapet after claiming the public should tolerate bumper City bonuses for the good of the UK economy. Griffiths, a former special adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said he was not “ashamed” of the generous reward policy at Goldman, which last week [...]