HOW HURDLES CAN SAVE THE BONUS September 15, 2009 DAVID MARDLEHEAD OF EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL, TAYLOR WESSING THE City’s “bonus culture” has come in for criticism since the onset of the credit crunch. Traditional models of share-based remuneration, while encouraging long-term growth, have lost much of their appeal in an era of shrinking corporate valuations. But skilled people still need to be paid well. [...]
Lehman Bros bondholders may be owed up to 44bn September 14, 2009 THE trustee holders of collapsed Lehman Brothers’ senior bonds said the debt holders may be owed as much as $73bn (£44bn), after losing their investments when the bank filed for bankruptcy protection a year ago, according to court documents. Wilmington Trust Company claims that holders of the senior debt of the failed bank are estimated [...]
Fee bonanza for Treasury APS advisers September 14, 2009 INVESTMENT banking and legal advisers have picked up £26.5m for their work advising the government on its Asset Protection Scheme (APS), according to data released by the Treasury under the Freedom of Information Act. Bankers from investment banks Citigroup, Credit Suisse and asset manager BlackRock have been working with the Treasury’s Financial Stability Unit in [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING September 14, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES RSA CONSIDERING ‘LARGER’ DEALSRSA, the general insurer, is looking at large acquisitions – potentially worth about £600m – that might need to be supported with a rights issue, it has told investors and analysts. The company, which has a strong capital cushion and a stated strategy of pursuing smaller, bolt-on deals, said there [...]
Lloyds gets support for a cash call September 9, 2009 LLOYDS Banking Group executives believe they have secured sufficient appetite from investors for a share placing that would allow the bank to reduce its participation in the government’s costly Asset Protection Scheme (APS), City A.M. can reveal. The bank has been sounding out selected investors over the past few weeks and has received assurances that [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING September 9, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES BAXTER BEHIND ON ORDERSBaxter, the US pharmaceuticals company, has failed to meet its pledge to rapidly deliver flu vaccine, stalling efforts to reduce the impact of the pandemic. British officials said they had received less Celvapan vaccine than agreed with Baxter, one of two companies with which the Department of Health signed a [...]
BarCap poaches Rothschild’s Marsaglia amid growth drive September 7, 2009 BARCLAYS Capital has taken its plans to become a global investment-banking player up a gear by naming Stefano Marsaglia, the respected Rothschild banker, as chairman of its financial institutions group (FIG). In the latest in a series of high-profile hires Barclays has snapped up the Italian heavyweight, who has spent the last 17 years at [...]
European stocks near 11-month high September 7, 2009 EUROPEAN shares closed higher yesterday, led by UKchocolate giant Cadbury which soared 38 per cent following a £10.2bn bid approach from US company Kraft Foods. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares rose 1.4 per cent to 975.90 points, just 0.3 per cent away from an 11-month closing high. The European benchmark index has [...]
Six myths about the financial crisis September 6, 2009 A comfortable, corporatist consensus is building up about how to deal with the financial crisis. Led by Alistair Darling and his French and German counterparts at the G20 finance ministers’ summit on the weekend, this consensus is essentially that the financial crisis “proves” that global free market capitalism has “failed” and that everything is the [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING September 2, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES OCH-ZIFF SET TO EARN PERFORMANCE FEES AGAINOch-Ziff, one of the largest hedge fund managers in the world, is set to start earning performance fees again across its $21.7bn (£13.3bn) of funds. The flagship Och-Ziff master fund is up 17.6 per cent this year, meaning it has almost completely recovered from losses incurred in [...]