There are rays of hope in a sluggish City jobs market November 28, 2012 CONSIDERING the current employment climate in the City, and the ruthless job cuts hitting the headlines, you would be forgiven for considering packing your bags and taking an early retirement in the country. A report released by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants last week showed that investment banks are set to lose another 40,000 jobs in [...]
Meet Mark Carney: the Canadian flown in to save the UK economy November 26, 2012 IN APPOINTING Mark Carney the new governor of the Bank of England, the government has found an ex-Goldman Sachs director comfortable with garnering the views of the City – yet unafraid of standing his ground at times of conflict. The Canadian famously clashed with JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon after a fierce disagreement over the [...]
Firms call for tax breaks for infrastructure November 25, 2012 BUSINESSES want the chancellor to revive plans to inject cash into large road and rail upgrades with tax breaks, a survey out today suggests. Senior tax professionals at some of Britain’s biggest firms put tax incentives for those investing in infrastructure at the top of their wish list for next week’s Autumn Statement. Tax credits [...]
High childcare costs needn’t give you a case of baby blues November 25, 2012 RISING childcare costs are deterring British mothers from returning to work. According to a 2011 Eurostat survey, 48.8 per cent of women with three or more children are in employment in the UK, compared with 71.3 per cent in the Netherlands and 68.2 in Finland. But family formation patterns have changed over the past few [...]
UBS is still a big player despite recent predicaments November 22, 2012 Anybody taking just a cursory glance at the headlines about UBS’s investment bank recently, might be forgiven for thinking it was something of a basket case. What with the news of a plan to shrink headcount by 10,000, a strategic refocusing of strategy away from high risk, complex trading products, followed by a guilty verdict [...]
FTSE 100 down on concerns over Greece November 21, 2012 The blue chip index edged down in early deals today, weighed down by a lack of agreement among Greece’s international lenders on emergency aid for the Eurozone country. Credit card insurer CPP Group fell 7.48 per cent, while Imagination Technologies sank 6.42 per cent on the news that it faced a rival for its bid [...]
Aviva appoints former AIA head Mark Wilson as chief executive November 20, 2012 AVIVA, the UK’s second-biggest insurer, yesterday announced it had appointed former AIA boss Mark Wilson as chief executive. The New Zealand-born insurance veteran prepared AIA for its 2010 listing and was credited with successfully steering the Asian firm through the financial crisis in his four-year tenure. His appointment at struggling Aviva comes six months after [...]
FTSE 100 down on global growth concerns November 16, 2012 The blue chip index edged down in early deals as investors fretted over US fiscal cliff concerns and Eurozone growth. Buyout group Melrose was the biggest faller on the leading share index, shedding 13.69 per cent as it said it was facing slowing revenue trends. Utility firm Pennon firm 2.55 per cent, while steelmaker Evraz [...]
We need a new entrepreneurial revolution to rescue Britain November 15, 2012 IT is all too easy to despair about everything that is wrong with Britain. But one ray of light is our slow-burning, yet increasingly profound shift towards becoming a more entrepreneurial society. Britain counts 4.8m private firms, 99.9 per cent of which are small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs). Most are micro businesses. The rise of [...]
FSA ends CPP misselling probe with a record £10.5m penalty November 15, 2012 CPP has been slapped with a joint-record £10.5m fine for misselling card protection insurance, following an FSA probe that lasted more than a year and wiped 90 per cent off the firm’s market value. The company has been left with a bill for £33.4m, including redress for customers and costs associated with the investigation, but [...]