Virgin and Resolution ‘circle Northern Rock’ July 28, 2011 Businessmen Richard Branson and Clive Cowdery, founder of insurance takeover specialist Resolution, are expected to be among the bidders for nationalised bank Northern Rock, people familiar with the matter said. Branson’s Virgin Money and Cowdery’s Resolution were likely to make first-round expressions of interest in Northern Rock this week to UK Financial Investments, the organisation [...]
Crisis shows risk can’t be abolished July 27, 2011 IT is going to be a hot summer – and I’m not even talking about the weather. After a brief and irrational lull after last week’s pseudo-deal in the Eurozone, the global sovereign debt crisis is accelerating again, with the row over extending America’s debt ceiling becoming ever more farcical. Gold hit close to $1,630, [...]
BUSINESSES CALL FOR GROWTH PLAN July 26, 2011 BUSINESS leaders, economists and Mayor Boris Johnson demanded strong measures to boost growth yesterday, after figures revealed that the economy grew by an unspectacular 0.2 per cent in the second quarter of the year. While statisticians partially blamed sluggish growth on one-off factors such as the royal wedding, a persistently weak economy could see the [...]
It’s as if the coalition wanted to fail July 25, 2011 IMAGINE you were trying to cripple private sector growth and throttle the recovery. Yes, I know only a fool would want to do that. But seriously – what would you do? Here are a few ideas. For a start, you would try and tie up businesses with as much red tape as possible. You would [...]
Yorkshire Building Society buys Egg assets from Citi July 25, 2011 BRITISH mortgage lender Yorkshire Building Society is to buy the mortgage and savings business of Egg Banking from US bank Citigroup, as Citi continues to sell non-core assets after its bailout during the credit crisis. Yorkshire, owned by its customers, said the Egg businesses it was acquiring comprised of a £2.5bn savings book and a [...]
Yorkshire to buy Egg units from Citi July 25, 2011 Mortgage lender Yorkshire Building Society is to buy the mortgage and savings business of Egg Banking from American bank Citigroup, as Citi continues to sell non-core assets after its bailout during the credit crisis. Yorkshire, owned by its customers, said the Egg businesses it was acquiring comprised of a £2.5bn savings book and a 430 [...]
FTSE gains fuelled by Eurozone deal July 22, 2011 The FTSE 100 tracked other global markets upwards as the sealing of a second bailout for Greece produced a collective sigh of relief from investors, governments and financial institutions. Leaders of the Eurozone threw a lifeline to debt-stricken Greece that includes an extra €109bn of government money as well as a significant contribution from private [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 21, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES FSA FINES WILLIS ARM A RECORD £6.9M The UK arm of Willis, the number three global insurance broker, has been fined a record £6.9m by the City watchdog for anti-bribery and corruption failings related to commissions paid overseas. The fine is the largest meted out by the Financial Services Authority for failings in [...]
DEBT CRISIS ESCALATES July 18, 2011 ITALY suspended trading in government and corporate bonds yesterday as the release of the EU’s stress tests plunged the region deeper into a crisis that some analysts are comparing to the fall of Lehman Brothers. The panic saw billions wiped off the value of Europe’s banks and interest rates on Italian ten-year debt climb above [...]
European idiocy at heart of crisis July 18, 2011 Once again, regulators have failed spectacularly. Gold hit £1,000 an ounce today for the first time, as equities fell, Club Med government bond yields jumped, spreads increased and the fear and loathing in the credit markets intensified – and all of that in response to the EU’s banking stress tests on Friday night, which were [...]