Banking shake-up gives the markets a case of the jitters November 3, 2009 BRITAIN’S top share index fell to its lowest closing level in a month yesterday, led down by banks after shake-ups at Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds and poor results from Swiss peer UBS The FTSE 100 closed 67.29 points or 1.3 per cent weaker at 5,037.21, having surrendered the 5,000 level for the first [...]
Brokers at ING call on Tesco to snap up Ahold November 2, 2009 MARKET talk that Tesco should snap up Dutch rival Royal Ahold resurfaced yesterday, after analysts said that such a deal would boost the retail giant’s US presence. Broker ING yesterday issued a note entitled “Buying Ahold would actually make sense for Tesco”. ING said that a potential £13.5bn bid would be easily financed by Tesco’s [...]
Blair eyed 1m fee to help Tesco in the Middle East November 1, 2009 EX-PRIME MINISTER Tony Blair held talks with supermarket giant Tesco over helping it expand into the Middle East, with the hope of earning a £1m fee. But the talks fell apart when Blair, who is now a peace envoy to the region, and Tesco couldn’t agree to terms. Blair considered acting as a figurehead for [...]
We need to shake up consumer banking October 28, 2009 YESTERDAY was the 80th anniversary of the Great Crash of 1929. Like the present crisis, which has fortunately turned out to be much less severe, the bubble of the 1920s was caused primarily by errors in monetary policy and a misunderstanding of the way the economy works. There was too much cheap money sloshing around [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING October 28, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES LOVELLS IN MERGER TALKS TO CREATE LEGAL FIRMLovells, the City law firm, was in talks on last night over a merger with Washington-based Hogan & Hartson aimed at creating a rare successful big transatlantic legal tie-up, said people familiar with the matter. The proposed deal would create a law firm with a strong [...]
TOP BANKER HIRED TO SPLIT UP ROCK October 27, 2009 SENIOR UBS banker Robin Budenberg is set to be named today as the new chief executive of UK Financial Investments (UKFI), the Treasury unit that manages the government’s holdings in UK banks. Budenberg’s first job will be to oversee the break up of Northern Rock into a “good” and a “bad” bank – a plan [...]
Money Dashboard secures 1m October 27, 2009 Money Dashboard, a personal finance website that helps people keep track of their money, said yesterday that it had secured a further £1m in investment ahead of its beta testing launch date next month. The service connects to a user’s online financial accounts and allows them to view all of their transactions in one place. [...]
B&B will split assets up to repay its loan October 25, 2009 PART-nationalised bank Bradford & Bingley (B&B) will split up its £50bn balance sheet into “good” and “bad” assets, in a move which mirrors the restructuring plans at Northern Rock. The group wants to sell off the “good” assets to private companies in a bid to repay its loans. Its mortgage book was nationalised last year, [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS October 21, 2009 AUTONOMYNoble said that Autonomy’s third quarter was solid with strong underlying cash conversion and substantial improvement in its disclosure. However, the broker said the earnings boost was primarily due to higher research and development capitalisation and downgraded the stock to “neutral”. INCHCAPEUBS increased its price target for Inchcape from 30p to 38p, on the back [...]
Goldman sends LSE shares down despite praise for CEO October 21, 2009 The FTSE 100 was all about the power of the analyst today, with a number of individual movers spurred up or down by words of wisdom from the City’s finest. The London Stock Exchange (LSE) shed 2.2 per cent to close at 914p after Goldman Sachs cut its rating on the stock to “neutral” on [...]