City Moves for 28 January 2015 | Who’s switching jobs January 27, 2015 Hamlins The law firm has announced the appointment of Charles Bezzant as partner. He will be heading up its real estate finance team, and joins from Reed Smith, where he qualified in 2000. Bezzant’s practice covers all finance aspects of property investment and development transactions. RBC Global Asset Management Royal Bank of Canada’s asset management [...]
Greek debt fear makes banks drag FTSE down – London Report January 27, 2015 BANKS led the FTSE 100 index lower yesterday as they slipped on concerns the Greek crisis could spread while miners fell with weaker metals prices. It ended the blue-chip index’s eight-session run to a four-month high on Monday. Mid-cap oil producer Afren plunged 71 per cent after saying it was in talks with its largest [...]
Post Office to challenge major banks for top spot in financial services January 25, 2015 The Post Office is in for major changes this week as the aged company sets its sights on one of the top spots in Britain's financial services industry. According to Sky News, the Post Office is hoping to become one of the country's leading financial services providers and will announce on Monday its plan to [...]
ECB bond-buying programme sends indices soaring up – London Report January 22, 2015 THE EUROPEAN Central Bank’s €1.14 trillion bond-buying programme sent UK shares to their highest level for four months yesterday. The FTSE 100 finished up 68.59 points, or 1.02 per cent, at 6,796.63, its highest since 19 September last year. Among the risers Royal Mail gained 3.55 per cent to 445.80p after a good Christmas performance [...]
State of the Union hints at Obama’s lame duck term January 22, 2015 There has been a growing trend in the State of the Union address the President gives each year. He stands before Congress and begins to alternate between populist appeals, personalised stories, and non-starter policy proposals. This year was no different, although there is a possibility that a couple minor changes may be made. Little of [...]
Barack Obama’s State of the Union address: “The shadow of crisis has passed” January 21, 2015 It was a triumphant moment for Barack Obama last night, when he stood up to tell his country "the shadow of crisis has passed". His closely-watched State of the Union address followed months of strong growth in the US economy – in stark contrast to its neighbours across the Atlantic. In a speech firmly designed [...]
Cinven strikes a £460m deal for Premium Credit January 13, 2015 Private equity firm Cinven yesterday clinched a £462m takeover of lender Premium Credit, adding another outfit to its growing list of financial services portfolio companies in Europe. Premium Credit, which lends to consumers and small and medium sized businesses, is led by former McKinsey stalwart Andrew Doman and employs about 300 people at its [...]
City Moves for 09 January 2015 | Who’s switching jobs January 8, 2015 Savills Matt McCue has been appointed out of town retail director at the real estate services provider. He has over 17 years’ experience in the industry, and joins from CBRE. He will continue to work with both landlord and retail clients at Savills. BNY Mellon The investment company’s wealth management business has appointed Yolande Escher [...]
The 100 City people you need to follow on Twitter this year, day four: Economists January 8, 2015 The financial crisis may have been a tough time for most of the City, but one group did pretty well out of it. There’s no doubt about it: economics has got sexy, as the popularity of everything from Thomas Piketty’s missive on inequality to “economics made easy” books such as The Undercover Economist, shows. Whether [...]
Christmas quiz: Test your knowledge December 22, 2014 Deloitte’s chief economist, poses some of the trickiest questions of the year. How many can you get right? Answers are at the bottom. 1 The Louvre is the world’s most popular art gallery, with 9.3m visits in 2013. How many visits did people make to Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Florida in the same year? a) [...]