Audit quality threatened by fee pressure June 14, 2012 PRESSURE to reduce fees poses a threat to the quality of British auditing, a leading member of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said yesterday, as the body issued its annual reports on the performance of the country’s four largest accountancy firms. Paul George, the organisation’s executive director of conduct, told City A.M.: “Commercial pressures run the [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 14, 2012 iCon Infrastructure Iain Macleod has been appointed as a partner at the investment firm, effective July 2012. He joins iCon’s private institutional European infrastructure team from Deutsche Bank, where he served as head of transportation and infrastructure for Europe, Middle East and Africa, and head of mergers and acquisitions for Asia. International Standard Asset Management [...]
Big four auditor to head up new City regulator June 11, 2012 THE OUTGOING chairman of professional services firm KPMG was yesterday named as the first chairman of one of the new City watchdogs. John Griffith-Jones will head up the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – one of two new regulatory bodies that will be created when the Financial Services Authority is replaced early next year. Ahead of the switchover, Griffith-Jones [...]
PROFILE: JOHN GRIFFITH-JONES June 11, 2012 KPMG veteran John Griffith-Jones is leaving behind a career spent at the big four auditor to make a sideways leap into regulation – where he could end up supervising many of the financial clients he has worked with during his 38 years at the firm. Griffith-Jones, who has twice sat on the judging panel for [...]
World’s airlines are poles apart as turbulence hits the Eurozone June 11, 2012 AIRLINES around the world are braced for the Eurozone’s turmoil to threaten profits and even claim the scalp of some firms. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) left this year’s global airline profit forecast unchanged at $3bn (£1.93bn), or 0.5 per cent of industry revenues. But this stable outlook fails to show the widening gulf [...]
Green shoots for jobs in the City in spite of Eurozone’s worries June 11, 2012 RECRUITMENT in the City and throughout the UK is defying the gloomy economic outlook despite increasing worries over a crisis in the Eurozone. London’s financial sector boosted the number of jobs available in May by 17 per cent compared to April, according to a Morgan McKinley survey released this morning. And three quarters of workers received [...]
Consultancies will help to decide size of bailout June 10, 2012 SPAIN has refused to say how much cash its ailing banks need until audits from two consultancies, Oliver Wyman and Roland Berger, have been completed. While the IMF has already estimated that Spanish banks need a capital injection of between €40bn and €80bn (£32.4bn and £64.7bn) under its own stress tests, Madrid has decided to [...]
Ella’s Kitchen has been cooking on all cylinders June 10, 2012 ANY parent fighting against the near-impossible battle to keep their toddler’s diet healthy will have heard of Ella’s Kitchen. Gracing the shelves of the nation’s supermarkets, Paul Lindley’s gastronomic creations are a contemporary take on uniform baby food and a healthy alternative to sweets for snacking kids. Lindley claims the success of Ella’s Kitchen is [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 7, 2012 Marsh & McLennan Mark Weil has joined the insurance broker and risk adviser as chief executive. He will oversee Marsh’s UK and Ireland operations. Weil graduated from the University of Cambridge with an engineering degree and has 15 years of consulting experience with Marsh’s sister company Oliver Wyman. Eruma Nicolas Marks has joined the specialist [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 6, 2012 Winston & Strawn Justin McClelland has joined the law firm from Milband as a partner in its global commercial litigation practice. He started his legal career at Slaughter & May, and previously served in Army Legal Services, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was appointed a Member of the British Empire (MBE) in 1998. PIMCO [...]