CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS July 19, 2011 Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer Freshfields has appointed corporate partner Julian Long as head of its London corporate practice for a three-year term. Long, who succeeds Mark Rawlinson, newly elected as London managing partner, is an M&A specialist who also runs the law firm’s consumer and healthcare sector group. He recently advised on Petrochina’s venture with Ineos [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS July 18, 2011 HSBC HSBC has promoted Krishna Patel, chief executive of HSBC Africa, to chief executive of its Global Private Banking division, reporting to group chief executive Stuart Gulliver. Patel will start his new role on 1 September, initially based in Geneva, and will focus on strengthening the bank’s presence in the fastest-growing wealth markets. Patel, who [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS July 18, 2011 LAND SECURITIES Panmure Gordon rates the commercial property group hold with an 825p target price as it believes today’s trading update will confirm a trend of strong rent growth and tenant demand, particularly in central London. Panmure believes Land Sec has a portfolio of prime retail space that will maintain its growth despite a tough [...]
Land Securities to start £275m of retail projects July 17, 2011 LAND Securities is close to starting work on a number of shopping development projects worth £275m, despite tough economic conditions still facing the retail sector. Britain’s biggest property company has lined up seven new projects in south-east England and the Midlands for retailers including Tesco and Primark, that together will create more than 1,000 jobs [...]
House prices fall in London and rest of UK July 17, 2011 House prices have dropped for the first time this year, according to a well-regarded Rightmove index released this morning. Prices fell 1.6 per cent across the UK in July, with even London’s houses experiencing a 1.4 per cent dip, the figures showed. In June, the average residential property in the capital hit an all time [...]
Mobile phone internet searches more than treble, boosting UK’s retail sector July 17, 2011 SHOPPERS’ internet searches from mobile phones and tablets more than trebled in the second quarter of the year, as booming online sales offer some hope to the UK’s retail sector. Mobile retail searches were up 216 per cent annualised, driving the total number of retail searches up by 27 per cent. “Volumes were down in [...]
THE WEEK AHEAD in association with GFT July 17, 2011 COMPANIES ● Today, Iceland Foods announces. Investors will hope it doesn’t get frosty results after news that Morrison may bid for some of its individual stores. ● IG reports tomorrow. The spread betting provider could soon be in the FTSE 100. ● On Thursday, the business process outsourcing company Capita will announce. It has been [...]
FTSE on back foot as bank stress tests loom July 15, 2011 The FTSE mirrored markets across Europe in early trading as investors awaited the results of bank strss tests with some lenders expected to fail to meet the criteria required. With persistent fears over the Eurozone debt crisis and the threat of a US rating downgrade casting a shadow market sentiment was tepid. European shares overall [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 14, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES LAFARGE IN TALKS TO SELL PLASTERBOARD ARM Lafarge is closing in on the sale of its plasterboard business as the French cement maker pushes ahead with its debt reduction programme and attempts to recover its investment grade credit rating. The world’s second-largest cement company by revenue said on Thursday it had entered exclusive [...]
Commodity falls and fears for stress tests see FTSE decline July 14, 2011 FALLS among commodity issues sapped the strength of Britain’s top share index yesterday, as worries over global growth clouded the demand outlook for metals and oils. At the close, the FTSE 100 index was down 59.48 points, or one per cent at 5,846.95, reversing all and more of the previous session’s 0.6 per cent rally. [...]