CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 8, 2011 Aberdeen Life Aberdeen Asset Management Life and Pensions, the subsidiary of Aberdeen Asset Management, has appointed Helen Webster as chief operating officer of the firm, which manages £1.9bn of assets for pension scheme and insurance clients. Webster joins from Aegon Asset Management, where she was responsible for product development and distribution, as well as a [...]
The rock’n’roll banker that is set to chair Aviva June 5, 2011 FORMER Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) chief executive John McFarlane is being touted as the next chairman of insurance group Aviva, after Sir Richard Broadbent passed over the role last month in favour of a move to Tesco. The appointment of McFarlane, who currently sits on the board of RBS, is believed to [...]
FORD AND GM SAY US CAR SALES ARE SLOW June 1, 2011 FORD Motor and General Motors yesterday reported lower US vehicle sales in May. General Motors’ sales fell 1.2 per cent month-on-month marking a reversal from a 26 per cent sales increase in April. Ford sales fell 2.4 per cent as strong sales of small cars were weighed down by lower sales of pickup trucks. Sales [...]
Wall Street sell-off on recovery fears June 1, 2011 WALL Street ended a four-day rally with its worst session since August yesterday and could suffer more losses in coming days as investors faced more signs the economic recovery is fading. All 10 Standard & Poor’s sectors ended more than one per cent lower and all 30 stocks in the Dow industrials fell. Banks were [...]
ALSO OUT THIS WEEK | FILM, MUSIC, GAMES May 26, 2011 FILM APOCALYPSE NOW Re-release for Francis Ford Coppola’s spellbinding depiction of the Vietnam war. ANGELS OF EVIL Elegant Italian crime saga about the rise and fall of a Milanese mobster. LIFE, ABOVE ALL South African film exploring the harshness of life in modern Johannesburg. DVD LOVE AND OTHER Drugs Saucy romantic comedy with Jake Gyllenhaal [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS May 24, 2011 May Gurney Margaret Ford, Baroness Ford of Cunninghame, will become non-executive chairman at the company’s AGM on 7 July 2011. In the interim she will be appointed to the board as a non-executive director, with immediate effect. Gurney, 53, recently retired from Serco as senior independent director and has extensive public company experience, including Grainger [...]
CAR TALK May 24, 2011 ASTON MARTIN TEAMS WITH ZAGATO To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the iconic DB4GT Zagato, Aston Martin has created an elegant, new V12 Zagato concept with the Italian design house Zagato. The car has a handcrafted aluminium body and features the iconic Zagato double bubble roof. The car premiered at the Villa D’Este Concours, Lake [...]
Diamond miner bets on Mellier to sparkle at top May 16, 2011 FRENCH-BORN Mellier moves to the number two diamond producer fresh from Alstom Transport, having been president of the French engineering group since 2003. He started his career at Ford in 1980 as a sales and planning analyst, and went on to spend 19 years there including stints in Portugal, New Zealand and Mexico. Mellier ended [...]
Aliens hit South London May 12, 2011 Film ATTACK THE BLOCK Cert: 12A LATER this year we have the promising prospect of a Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford fighting off marauding extraterrestrials with six-shooters in Cowboys & Aliens; in the meantime, Attack the Block brings interplanetary nasties up against a more familiar (to Londoners, anyway) adversary – this is Hoodies & Aliens, [...]
GM triples its profits May 5, 2011 General Motors (GM) added further weight to the automotive industry bounce-back after more than tripling its quarterly profits. However, the stronger-than-expected results, driven by a recovery in the US market and strong sales in Asia, were not enough to please bearish investors, who picked up on its vehicle prices being weaker than rival Ford, with [...]