City Moves for 18 November 2014 | Who’s switching jobs November 17, 2014 Barclays Andrea Delay has been appointed head of professional services at the bank. She has held several senior positions at Barclays, including head of industry for the facilities management sector. Delay has also held corporate banking roles at Wachovia Bank and Commerzbank. Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management Munish Varma has been appointed head of structured [...]
British companies considering hiring hackers to fight cyber criminals November 16, 2014 British companies are considering turning to ex-hackers in a bid to stay one step ahead of cyber criminals, according to latest research released today by KPMG. The professional services company surveyed 300 senior IT and human resources professionals in firms employing 500-plus staff to assess how they were protecting themselves against cyber security breaches. Nearly [...]
2014 City A.M. awards: It’s always good to toast the best of the City – Editor’s Letter November 13, 2014 In a matter of weeks, during the first few days of January, I will be calling people to invite them to next year’s City A.M. awards. The event, the latest of which was held last night, has become a fixture in the City calendar and has grown in stature since its inception. Last night, [...]
KPMG’s Matt Wood has the eye for ING’s art November 11, 2014 Director of operations for KPMG (Restaurant Associates), Matt Wood (right) enjoyed last night’s preview of the 2014 ING Discerning Eye exhibition – and thanks to City A.M.’s competition, he walked away with one of the pieces. Here he is with ING’s chief of commercial banking Gerald Walker and his new piece of art, Wet Morning [...]
Drinks giant Diageo drops KPMG for PwC as new rules come in November 11, 2014 Diageo announced yesterday that it had replaced its auditor KPMG with rival PwC, to bring it in line with new regulations compelling companies to consider changing their accountants every decade. The alcoholic drinks giant – which produces Guinness – said PwC’s appointment would take effect for Diageo’s financial year ending 30 June 2016, subject to [...]
Halloween heatwave gives retailers a scary outlook November 10, 2014 Retailers suffered another month of lacklustre sales in October as the mild weather and supermarket price wars continued to weigh on the sector, despite a slight bounce back on the previous month. Like-for-like retail sales were flat in October, an improvement on the 2.1 per cent reported in September but a slowdown on the same [...]
Archbishop of York urges UK businesses to adopt living wage to tackle income inequality November 10, 2014 It is time for UK businesses to start supporting the living wage, the Archbishop of York argued to Britain’s business leaders today. Archbishop John Sentamu delivered a stern and simple message to the Confederation of British Industry annual conference: “Work must pay.” The living wage, which is set at £9.15 per hour in [...]
Small firms put off exporting by legal barriers November 9, 2014 LEGAL barriers are putting off smaller firms from entering overseas markets, new research shows today. The joint study by KPMG and YouGov surveyed 1100 UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The main barriers to entry to foreign markets cited by SMEs were complex legal regimes, followed closely by not having strong enough networks overseas. Currently, [...]
UK construction boom close to pre-crisis level November 9, 2014 THE CONSTRUCTION industry continues to make impressive headway as the sector soars towards pre-crisis levels of output, a set of data shows today. The majority of firms are reporting rising output. The net balance – the per cent of survey respondents answering positively minus those answering negatively – of building contractors that said output rose [...]
Job creation up but skills are in short supply November 6, 2014 JOB CREATION remained strong last month, but a skills shortage could be looming on the horizon. A report released today by consultancy giant KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (Rec) showed that permanent staff placements rose for the 25th consecutive month in October. Meanwhile, another KPMG report warned that a huge skills shortage in the [...]