PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FIRM OF THE YEAR August 6, 2012 TODAY’s shortlists for the third annual City A.M. awards kick off with our nominations for professional services firm of the year. The UK and EU may be planning significant shake-ups to the industry, but the firms on our shortlist aren’t letting that worry them, continuing to win bluechip clients, pursue global expansion and pioneer employment [...]
WorldSpreads administrators look to courts August 5, 2012 THE ADMINISTRATOR for defunct spread betting firm WorldSpreads yesterday said it was collecting evidence ahead of potential legal action to recover money owed to the firm’s creditors. A forensic accounting team from KPMG has been appointed to pore over 24 terabytes of data including emails recovered from WorldSpreads to try and piece together how the [...]
Bank of England holds rates despite darkening economy August 2, 2012 THE Bank of England held fire on new policy yesterday, despite the darkening outlook for the UK economy. Its Monetary Policy Committee decided not to increase quantitative easing (QE) and kept rates on hold again, an approach analysts have put down to a concern to see how funding for lending (FLS) and the most recent [...]
CITY VIEWS | ARE YOU PLANNING TO GO TO THE OLYMPICS? August 2, 2012 DANNY MILLS LLOYD’S OF LONDON I’m not going but being a rower myself, I went ecstatic when I went to see Britain’s first gold medal victory in the rowing a couple of days ago, and having served in the Royal Navy I found the presence of the Armed Forces added to the patriotic fervour. MIKE [...]
INNOVATION OF THE YEAR August 1, 2012 City A.M.’s Innovation of the Year category seeks out businesses that are frontrunners in their field, whether finance, marketing or product development. Our shortlist includes green technology, new media, manufacturing, a finance provider and a new approach to financial restructuring. The winner will need to show a genuinely innovative approach and demonstrate significant milestones achieved [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS July 31, 2012 Arle Capital Partners Hilary Ellis has been appointed human resources director at the private equity firm. She will also sit on the board of Alma Consulting, one of Arle’s portfolio companies. Ellis was most recently at Alstom, where she served as director of integration and change management. PensionsFirst Capital Hugo James has been appointed chief [...]
KPMG: Finance shake-up could mean end of universal banking July 30, 2012 THE ENTIRE concept of universal banking could be thrown out as a result of public pressure for transparency and clarity in the sector, KPMG warns today. Investors must also learn to cope with the new environment, the auditor said in a report. It argued banks are unlikely to regain the level of profits seen before [...]
Grant Thornton and Cenkos top small-cap table July 30, 2012 CITY broker FinnCap has moved to within a whisker of catching Cenkos Securities to top a table of brokers with the most number of Aim-listed clients, a study released today reveals. FinnCap, chaired by private equity stalwart Jon Moulton, boosted its roster of small and medium sized clients from 74 to 79 over the quarter [...]
ANALYST VIEWS | WHAT’S YOUR TAKE ON THE GDP FIGURES? July 25, 2012 ANDREW GOODWIN ITEM CLUB It would be easy to get carried away … but the reality is that the Diamond Jubilee bank holidays have wreaked havoc with the data. The ONS has effectively said that output fell by almost three per cent … between May and June because of the movement of the late-May bank [...]
Rothschild blames deal drought for lower income from advisory July 23, 2012 ROTHSCHILD, the centuries old banking dynasty, has posted a nine per cent drop in its advisory and banking business due to a slowdown in global M&A activity last year. Results from the family firm’s holding company, Paris Orleans, show revenues for its Global Financial Advisory and Corporate Banking arms dropped to €768.1m (£600.6m) for the [...]