Osborne announces plans to explore the future of Bitcoin August 6, 2014 George Osborne has announced plans to explore how cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin can play a role in the UK financial system. The chancellor has commissioned the Treasury to produce a report on digital currencies, examining their potential benefits and risks, which is set to be published in the Autumn. Osborne said he aims to make the UK [...]
Urban Exposure becomes latest company to drop plans to float August 5, 2014 RESIDENTIAL property lender Urban Exposure yesterday became the latest company to scrap plans to float, blaming London’s lacklustre IPO market. The investment firm, founded by former Deutsche Bank risk analyst Randeesh Sandhu, had planned to raise £500m to help fund the construction of more homes in London and the south east. However, in a statement [...]
City Moves for 04 August 2014 | Who’s switching jobs August 3, 2014 Sovereign Land The retail and leisure developer and asset manager has announced the appointment of Thomas Mallindine as a senior asset manager. He previously worked at M&G Real Estate for five years, most recently as investment manager, retail and institutional funds. Kingston Smith & Partners The corporate recovery and insolvency arm of Kingston Smith, the accountancy [...]
Taking the Harlequins to new heights with launch at Shard July 30, 2014 The mighty Harlequins may be based out in Twickenham but its stars schlepped across to the Shard for an 8am launch to their season yesterday, with sponsors DHL Express and Adidas joining along for the ride. With the ‘Quins often referred to as the City Slickers, chief exec David Ellis thought the view was fitting. [...]
City Moves for 30 July 2014 | Who’s switching jobs July 29, 2014 Anthology David Clark has been appointed chief financial officer at the property developer, backed by Oaktree Capital Management. He joins from Mount Anvil, the specialist residential property developer, where he was group finance director. CityJet Patrick Lukan has been appointed chief commercial officer at the airline. He joins from Carlson Wagonlit Travel, where he was [...]
City’s Gherkin skyscraper to be sold off with £640m starting price tag July 28, 2014 The City’s iconic Gherkin has been put up for sale on the open market after it collapsed into receivership earlier this year, with a price tag of around £640m. Receivers at Deloitte have appointed their real estate arm and Savills to sell 30 St Mary’s Axe, which will be advertised to buyers across the [...]
Conversions to housing driving office shortage July 28, 2014 DEVELOPERS converting commercial property into private homes are helping to drive the sharpest decline in availability of non-residential buildings in at least 16 years. According to figures released today by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), there has been a rapid drop in the number of available commercial properties across the UK. A third [...]
Chief executive of Net-A-Porter Mark Sebba to stand down July 27, 2014 Mark Sebba, the chief executive of online luxury fashion retailer Net-A-Porter is to stand down later this week after 11 years, during which the company’s innovative approach has grown it into a major player in the sector. Sebba joined the company in 2003, only three years after it was founded by Natalie Massenet in [...]
Inside Track: Sands deserves praise for facing critics July 27, 2014 Say what you like about Standard Chartered chief executive Peter Sands, and many people have in the past few days, he deserves credit for facing his critics. Sands knows that the performance of the emerging markets bank he runs hasn’t been all it could have been during the last few months. But on Thursday last [...]
Barclays’ Ashok Vaswani is hoping to turn around the UK’s most broken industry July 27, 2014 "My name is Ashok Vaswani. My role is to listen to customers, to make sure we give them what they want.” This understates his job title somewhat. Vaswani is Barclays’ CEO of personal and corporate banking, a powerful new job which has seen him take control of its global operations in retail, business and [...]