City firms commence training for this year’s Diamond Relay race at the Olympic Park stadium February 25, 2016 The first 100 corporate teams have already signed up for this year's Diamond relay race this summer. The gruelling 5x5km dash, taking place at the Olympic Park stadium, will pit accountants, analysts, bankers, insurers, lawyers and pretty much everyone else in the Square Mile against each other this July. Last year 230 corporate running teams took part in [...]
High Court dismisses application from Mishcon de Reya over KPMG’s handling of Barclays’s mis-selling of interest rate swaps compensation scheme February 25, 2016 Britain's biggest banks narrowly avoided a major legal challenge today, when a High Court judge dismissed a case relating to the mis-selling of rate swap products. The case could have had far-reaching implications for a multi-billion pound scheme to compensate victims of mis-sold interest rate swaps. But the High Court today dismissed an application from Mishcon de Reya to look [...]
Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu wants Europe’s biggest clubs to be given wildcard entry into the Champions League February 23, 2016 Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has backed the idea of the Champions League offering wildcard entries to elite European clubs who fail to qualify for the competition. Members of the European Club Association (ECA), the representative group of the continent's biggest clubs, tabled the idea of offering wildcards as a way of ensuring well-supported teams [...]
Of data leaks and oil spills: Tips for tackling a corporate crisis February 23, 2016 As Johnson & Johnson, BP, Volkswagen and TalkTalk can all attest, corporate crises are never easy. Communicating an assured and consistent message at a time when consumers may be vulnerable to fraud or even poisoning is one that few do well, especially when one eye is on the share price. “Businesspeople are used to being detached,” [...]
UK North Sea explorer First Oil Expro goes into administration due to decline in brent crude price February 22, 2016 First Oil Expro, an Aberdeen-based UK North Sea oil explorer, has gone into administration. Two other oil companies, Enquest and Cairn Energy, have taken on the company's 15 per cent stake in the Kraken North Sea oil field. Enquest will now have a 70.5 per cent holding and Cairan 29.5 per cent. Parent company First [...]
Ladies who don’t lunch: Maike Currie talks to financial services entrepreneur Joanne Smith about dry January and why compliance is the “new rock ‘n roll” February 18, 2016 My lunch date with Joanne Smith, financial services veteran turned entrepreneur, is long overdue. I have been using stalling tactics and to be honest it’s due to her area of expertise: compliance. (Read: boring box-ticker.) But it’s a New Year and, cloaked in noble resolutions, I finally make the time to meet her at a [...]
Online alternative finance doubles in 2015 to £3.2bn as institutions buy into the idea February 17, 2016 The online alternative finance market almost doubled in 2015 to £3.2bn according to a report from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance and innovation foundation Nesta. The market's 84 per cent growth slowed from the year before however when it increased a whopping 161 per cent. “Although the absolute year-on-year growth rate is slowing down,” the report [...]
City Moves for 16 February 2016 | Who’s switching jobs February 16, 2016 Graydon Business information specialist Graydon has announced the appointment of Rob Veneboer as its new group chief operating officer. Rob is an experienced business leader in the online information industry. In his previous role, Rob was managing director business information solutions for LexisNexis International. For 10 years, he worked for LexisNexis as managing director in [...]
Audit watchdog’s new powers signal shift February 15, 2016 The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is still dealing with the fallout from the financial crisis. The accountancy regulator has attracted criticism recently for its decision not to investigate KPMG over its role in the collapse of banking giant HBOS in 2008. Chief executive Stephen Haddrill is in the middle of drafting a response to the chairman [...]
Fraudsters are taking advantage of lonely singles on Valentine’s Day February 12, 2016 Haven't completely lost your faith in humanity yet? We suggest you sit down… Research by KPMG has found dastardly fraudsters are using dating sites to target lonely singles on Valentine's Day. In fact, according to its fraud barometer, people lost £3.2m to dating scams in 2015. One fraudster conned five women out of £180,000 – and used [...]