UBS fined £30m by watchdog over £1.4bn rogue trader loss November 26, 2012 SWISS bank UBS, which last week saw former trader Kweku Adoboli jailed for a £1.4bn trading fraud, was fined £29.7m by regulators yesterday for failing to prevent the scandal. The Zurich based bank, which lost its chief executive Oswald Gruebel over the trading debacle, managed to reduce an original fine of £42.4m the Financial Services [...]
Firms call for tax breaks for infrastructure November 25, 2012 BUSINESSES want the chancellor to revive plans to inject cash into large road and rail upgrades with tax breaks, a survey out today suggests. Senior tax professionals at some of Britain’s biggest firms put tax incentives for those investing in infrastructure at the top of their wish list for next week’s Autumn Statement. Tax credits [...]
PwC remains City’s top auditor while JP Morgan holds the top adviser spot November 25, 2012 PWC has retained its position as the City’s most-favoured auditor, figures out today reveal, although KPMG has managed to sign up a number of FTSE 250 clients. Research from data consultancy Morningstar shows that PwC has 367 stock market clients, and 42 of the FTSE 100 – almost double that of second-place KPMG. However, KPMG [...]
UBS set to face regulator fine of up to £50m for Adoboli loss November 22, 2012 REGULATORS are closing in on a deal to fine Swiss bank UBS millions of pounds over its $2.3bn (£1.4bn) trading loss, following the conclusion of the criminal trial against its former rogue trader Kweku Adoboli earlier this week. UK regulator the Financial Services Authority and its Swiss counterpart, the Swiss Financial Markets Authority (FINMA), are [...]
Bean counters meet at old fish market for accountancy gongs November 22, 2012 FORMER Deloitte partner and ex-BAA chief financial officer Margaret Ewing picked up the outstanding industry contribution gong at the British Accountancy Awards in Billingsgate on Wednesday night. Accounting giants KPMG won global firm of the year, Johnston Carmichael won national firm of the year, while mid-tier firm of the year was Cooper Parry. KPMG’s Raylene [...]
New help for zombie firms as debts bite November 21, 2012 LLOYDS hopes it can save tens of millions of pounds by sending in turnaround experts to combat the horde of zombie firms plaguing the economy and bank balance sheets. But KPMG yesterday warned that thousands of struggling firms could starve to death, running out of cash over the next year if the economy does not [...]
Mothercare hires Argos finance boss to help with turnaround November 21, 2012 MOTHERCARE has hired the finance director of Argos to help the struggling retailer with its transformation plans. Matt Smith, a former KPMG director who has spent 10 years at Argos parent firm Home Retail Group, will join the firm at a date yet to be announced. Mothercare has stepped up its fight to halt declining [...]
UK technology darling’s rocky road to HP deal November 20, 2012 WHEN Autonomy was sold to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $11bn (£6.9bn) in October 2011, the deal was hailed as a defining moment for Cambridge’s technology scene and chief Mike Lynch was made a poster boy for British entrepreneurship. But seven months later, Lynch was out of HP, fired by the US giant’s new boss Meg Whitman. [...]
HP’s staggering accusations drag in City’s largest firms November 20, 2012 THIS paper does its best to avoid editorial hyperbole, but when a firm takes an $8.8bn writedown on an $11bn acquisition barely 12 months after the deal I might just make an exception. It’s completely flabbergasting. Analysts and shareholders alike may have baulked at the steep price that Hewlett-Packard shelled out for UK tech darling [...]
Rapid responses November 20, 2012 Practical pensions [Re: The Ostrich Generation, yesterday] I imagine that one of the main reasons young people are not placing much faith in the future of their pensions is their lack of confidence and certainty about the future more generally. If someone is in their mid-20s, three or four decades is a long way ahead. [...]