Brussels is about to clobber the City May 16, 2010 HOW absurd. A successful British industry, one which even banker-bashers admit wasn’t responsible for the financial crisis, will this week be hammered by the European Union, marking the new government’s first foreign policy defeat and the latest blow to London’s prosperity. I’m of course referring to the EU’s attack on alternative investment managers, including hedge [...]
Business and King welcome spending cuts May 12, 2010 BANK OF ENGLAND governor Mervyn King yesterday hailed the new coalition government’s plans for an immediate £6bn cut in public spending to tackle Britain’s record peacetime deficit, saying it was imperative that Britain’s fiscal problems are dealt with sooner rather than later. Breaking from his traditional silence on fiscal policy, the governor said he had [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING May 9, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES GARDNER TO TAKE CONNAUGHT ROLE Connaught will today announce Sir Roy Gardner as its new non-executive chairman in a move the social housing maintainance group hopes will stabilise the business after a turbulent six months. The group, which mends leaky pipes in council houses and sweeps roads, was hit by the sudden resignation [...]
Shareholders question code April 26, 2010 The Investment Management Association, whose members include fund giants such as Henderson and Schroders, said yesterday the Financial Reporting Council’s Stewardship Code for institutional shareholders should to be flexible. The IMA said its members, who collectively own 43 per cent of the UK stockmarket, interacted with their investee companies differently and this needed to be reflected in [...]
ABI director quits for FRC April 21, 2010 THE Association of British Insurers (ABI)’s director of investment affairs is to stand down after a decade at the institution. Peter Montagnon will take up a new role as senior investment adviser to the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). Montagnon said: “After nearly a decade in this role, now is the right time to take up [...]
TUI is losing £6m a day in travel chaos April 19, 2010 TUI TRAVEL, one of the UK’s largest holiday groups, has estimated that the impact of the ash-spewing volcano in Iceland has cost it up to £6m a day. The Crawley based group said yesterday that it had incurred a cumulative cost of £20m from Thursday to Sunday last week and estimated that daily costs thereafter [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING April 15, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES INVESTORS RAISE FEARS ON “STEWARDSHIP CODE” As the Financial Reporting Council prepares to issue a shareholders’ best practice code, industry groups and institutional investors say they are worried it will become another list of boxes to tick. The FRC’s consultation on the world’s first official “stewardship code” closes on Friday and it expects [...]
The defender of feminism who is taking on the City April 11, 2010 EVEN before parliament was dissolved last week, there was a strange end-of-an-era feeling hanging over the House of Commons. More than 150 MPs are standing down, many of them discredited by the expenses scandal, while a tired Labour government is limping towards the end of its third term with little in the way of new [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING April 8, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES HOLLYWOOD TOP GUNS TAKE SHOT AT REVIVING DEBT-RIDDEN MGM Tony and Sir Ridley Scott have emerged as surprise contenders to steer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer back to solvency after submitting a restructuring plan to the Hollywood studio’s lenders. The brothers, who between them are responsible for Alien, Top Gun and Gladiator, have expressed interest in running [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 29, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES BIG INVESTMENTS BOOST UK’S GREEN SECTOR The prospect of thousands of new “green” jobs in the UK as part of a drive for a low carbon economy came a step closer with two big investments in the environmental sector. Siemens, the German industrial giant, became the fourth wind turbine manufacturer to announce that [...]