Fear and loathing stalk the global financial markets March 15, 2011 EVERYTHING always seems to go wrong at the same time. Global investors are always extraordinarily naïve about geopolitics and natural disasters; they have suddenly awoken from their stupor and realised that the world is a much more dangerous place that they thought. The earthquake in Japan, a devastating catastrophe for that country, was the tipping [...]
Firms pull out staff and close Tokyo offices March 15, 2011 FIRMS began pulling employees out of Tokyo amid fears of spreading nuclear contamination yesterday. Banks, legal firms and manufacturers closed Tokyo offices, offered to evacuate staff to unaffected parts of Japan and sent expatriates to Hong Kong and Singapore after explosions and fires at a Fukushima Daiichi reactor yesterday sent a cloud of radioactive material [...]
Yet again, we are reminded of our extreme frailty March 13, 2011 HUMILITY is the only appropriate response in the face of the horrendous human tragedy, grief and destruction unleashed on Japan. We are fortunate to be living in Britain, a temperate country largely immune from the destruction regularly unleashed by natural forces on the rest of the world. With the death toll mounting towards ever-more horrific [...]
THE TIPSTER March 13, 2011 THURSDAY’S credit rating downgrade by Moody’s for Spain did the local equity market few favours and while we may still be some way above the 12 months lows of May 2010 when the Spanish stock index, Ibex, hit 8,562, the near term challenge will likely be holding onto the psychologically significant 10,000 level. The current [...]
Eurocrats back new tax on City March 8, 2011 THE European Parliament voted yesterday to slap a Tobin tax on all financial transactions that pass through Europe, in a bid to raise €200bn (£172bn) for EU?spending. The tax would disproportionately hit the City, Europe’s financial capital, at a time when banks are struggling to build up their capital bases. The EU?Parliament said the proposal, [...]
BUSINESS AS USUAL AS BORIS BIKES TO CANNES March 8, 2011 IF you happened to be in Cannes yesterday afternoon, you would have been treated to the sight of a middle-aged, straw-haired man riding a Boris Bike into the centre of town. On closer inspection, you would have spotted that that figure was, in fact, the London Mayor Boris Johnson, who was livening up the MIPIM [...]
Government set to unveil £140 flat-rate pension March 7, 2011 IN a radical shake-up of the basic state pension system, pensioners are set to receive a flat-rate of £140 a week, the government is set to reveal today. The pension reforms, to be unveiled by work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, are aimed at simplying the current complex system made up of a basic [...]
Moody’s sees rising risk of Greek default March 7, 2011 MOODY’S delivered a jolt to Eurozone bond markets yesterday by downgrading Greece three notches to B1 – a lower rating than Egypt – and assigning the sovereign a “negative” outlook. The yield on Greece’s three-year debt reached highs not seen since the government had to be bailed out last May, spiking to 16.8 per cent, [...]
ING to repay 70 per cent of Dutch bailout by May 2011 March 7, 2011 Dutch bancassurer ING has outlined plans for early repayment of its credit crunch bailout from the Dutch government. ING said that by May 2011 it will have repaid €7bn (£6bn) out of a total €10bn it received from the Dutch state, with the remaining €3bn to be paid back by May 2012. Early repayment is [...]
Kwik-Fit unit to make £192m March 3, 2011 EUROPEAN private equity firm PAI Partners is expected to make £192m from its sale of Kwik-Fit to Japanese conglomerate ITOCHU, a deal first revealed by City A.M. on Wednesday (see right). PAI, which was being advised by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, signed off on a £637m sale of Britain’s biggest tyre retailer to ITOCHU [...]