BRITAIN SINKS EVER DEEPER INTO THE RED November 19, 2009 UK PUBLIC borrowing reached a record high in October, according to official figures published yesterday, revealing the state of public finances to be much worse than many economists feared. Borrowing ballooned by £11.4bn during October, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, around double the consensus forecast. National debt has spiralled to £829.7bn – equivalent [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 18, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES LLOYDS OFFLOADS MALL FOR £300MHammerson, the UK real estate investment trust, has emerged as the preferred buyer of a £300m shopping mall near Glasgow being sold by Lloyds Banking Group after the original owner defaulted on the loan. The UK commercial property market has seen few sales by the larger lending banks, in [...]
ECONOMICS GURU MAGNUS WOWS THE CROWDS ON SPEAKER CIRCUIT November 15, 2009 GEORGE Magnus, senior economic adviser to investment bank UBS, has a fair few accolades to his name – not least the dubious honour of having predicted the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression in an uncannily prophetic research paper. But I hear the dapper 60-year-old has recently earned himself a new title, that [...]
Director pay in focus at AI November 15, 2009 ADMINISTRATORS to Aero Inventory (AI), the AIM-listed aero parts group that collapsed last week, are looking at ways to claw back money from the company’s directors amid concern over the level of pay and bonuses taken by key executives. KPMG, which last week took control of AI on behalf of banks, owed more than £300m, [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 12, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES NATIONAL EXPRESS FACES EUROSTAR BILLNational Express could be saddled with a bill of up to £32m to cover losses made by Eurostar, the cross-Channel rail service. The indebted transport group, which gives up its lossmaking East Coast rail franchise tonight, is the leading shareholder in a consortium that manages the UK end of [...]
Accountants can save the world, report November 11, 2009 THERE has been no shortage of talk about the forthcoming Copenhagen climate change conference in December, at which presidents and prime ministers will discuss ways to save the world by reducing carbon emissions. Already, many suspect that little will be decided at the meeting. The reality is that if the world is saved, it will [...]
Director out as Aero’s bank calls in KPMG November 11, 2009 AERO Inventory, a parts supplier for the airline industry that was contemplating a move from the junior market to a full listing less than two months ago, yesterday ended up in the hands of the administrators. Accounting group KPMG yesterday took control of the group on behalf of a group of banks led by Lloyds [...]
Professional services are a bedrock of City success November 11, 2009 AN insurer talking to accountants may not sound like much of a crowd-drawer in the traditional sense. But when Lord Levene, chairman of Lloyd’s of London, addressed a breakfast briefing at Chartered Accountants Hall yesterday, his comments were enough to spark real interest among the audience. Levene’s salient point was that we cannot allow one [...]
Nuclear sites get the all clear November 9, 2009 NUCLEAR POWER expansion got the go-ahead from the government yesterday, after energy secretary Ed Miliband named 10 approved sites in England and Wales for future power stations. Miliband said the list includes German utility RWE’s plans for Kirksanton, a site in Cumbria, which currently has no nuclear facilities. But he rejected EDF Energy’s proposal for [...]
EX-BANKER TRIES HIS LUCK WITH SEX TOYS November 9, 2009 OF ALL the career paths followed by former City types who have lost jobs in the recession, this one really does take the biscuit. Matt Thomas, a former manager in corporate finance at Seymour Pierce, decided to make the most of the opportunity when he was made redundant last November by setting up a joint [...]