MEGA-BRAND ADDS BANKING TO ITS WIDE RANGING INTERESTS November 17, 2011 VIRGIN MONEY With the purchase of 74 Northern Rock branches, the Virgin Money brand has just got a whole lot bigger. It already has a banking licence, having purchased Church House Trust, a tiny bank, in January 2010. It offers credit cards in conjunction with MBNA; mortgages in a joint venture with RBS-backed The One [...]
US debt hits £15 trillion as cut-off looms November 16, 2011 BUDGET talks in the US Congress were locked in stalemate yesterday as Democrats and Republicans waited for the other side to make a new offer on taxes and healthcare. As the US’s debt pile crossed the $15 trillion mark, members of a 12-member “super committee” fought to find some $1.2 trillion (£764bn) in budget savings over [...]
BERLUSCONI, OIL AND A LOAD OF EUROS November 14, 2011 LAST Wednesday, global stock indices took a dive as Italian bond yields soared. Having waved off George Papandreou as Greek Prime Minister, bondholders turned their attention to Italy. Investors began to panic as the yield on Italy’s 10-year BTPs flew above 7 per cent – a level which saw Greece, Ireland and Portugal require emergency [...]
Osborne in hunt for growth plan November 13, 2011 CHANCELLOR George Osborne is in talks with institutional investors about getting private cash to fund billions in infrastructure projects as part of a desperate bid to get the economy moving despite the global debt crisis. Among the ideas being mulled by HM Treasury is the establishment of an infrastructure investment fund to channel private money [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS November 13, 2011 Crest Nicholson The house builder has appointed Trevor Selwyn as managing director of a newly formed London division. The new division will have an annual turnover of £100m, developing mid-range sites in and around the capital. Selwyn was formerly at Countryside Properties, and spent his last seven years there as land director for subsidiary Copthorn [...]
Barclays private equity unit in management buyout November 11, 2011 Barclays Private Equity is being bought out by its own management team and will be relaunched as Equistone Partners Europe, it said, adding that the value of the gross assets being sold off was expected to be around £45m. Barclays, which last month posted higher profits as gains in its retail banking and credit card [...]
Banks pitch £4bn credit easing plan November 10, 2011 BANKS have pitched a credit easing scheme that would flood small businesses with up to £4bn of new loans within a year of being launched, City A.M. has learned. In a confidential policy paper sent to HM Treasury last week and seen by City A.M., Britain’s biggest lenders have proposed a plan that would see [...]
High anxiety raises profits for Experian November 10, 2011 EXPERIAN said yesterday that increasing concern among utilities and telecoms firms over the ability of customers to pay their bills helped drive a 20 per cent jump in profits. The credit data firm is benefitting as corporates and public sector bodies carry out more consumer checks and try to cut fraud. It said underlying pre-tax [...]
Markets choppy on Eurozone fears November 10, 2011 The FTSE 100 opened down today as Italy’s deepening debt crisis threatened to topple the Eurozone and plunge the world economy into uncharted waters. The cost of borrowing on Italian government bonds jumped to seven per cent yesterday — a level considered unsustainable by economists. Italy today launches an auction of as much as €5bn [...]
Bailed-out Dexia reveals €6.3bn loss on Belgian and Greek arms November 9, 2011 STRICKEN Franco-Belgian bank Dexia reported a one-off €6.3bn (£5.36bn) loss in the third quarter as its break up continued. It faced costs of €4bn on the nationalisation of Dexia Bank Belgium and a loss of €2.3bn on its holdings of Greek government debt. The group, which last month received a €90bn bailout, yesterday also listed [...]