TSB’s new boss takes helm amidst parent company’s uncertainty March 21, 2025 UK retail bank TSB announced on Friday that Marc Armengol had taken over as its new chief executive officer. Armengol, who previously served as corporate strategy director at the lender, was tapped for the role in November 2024. His appointment follows the retirement of former boss Robin Bulloch. Before joining TSB, Armengol worked at the [...]
Wetherspoons: Pub group hikes dividend despite cost warning March 21, 2025 Pub giant J D Wetherspoon has reported a dip in profits in its half-year results despite an uplift in sales, while chairman Tim Martin warned that rising labour costs and tax disparities are set to hit the pub industry hard. Its share price fell more than seven per cent in early trades. Like-for-like sales rose [...]
Stifel flags disclosure concerns from private equity trust March 20, 2025 Investment bank Stifel has flagged disclosure concerns in a private equity trust that has cut back on the level of detail it provides around its loans. While examining HgCapital Trust’s recent report and accounts, Stifel analysts claimed that there was less disclosure and commentary around debt in the fund than there had been a year [...]
IT outages: Are UK banks failing to modernise? March 20, 2025 Imagine it’s payday, and you’re trying to pay your bills or make a critical purchase, only to discover that your bank’s system has gone down. For millions of customers at Britain’s major banks, this nightmare is all too familiar. Over the past two years, nine of the UK’s banks were offline for more than 800 [...]
Lloyd’s of London’s profit drops despite premium growth March 20, 2025 Lloyd’s of London, the world’s leading insurance and reinsurance marketplace, has reported a profit before tax of £9.6bn for 2024, a drop from the £10.7bn reported for 2023. The market, which is made up of more than 50 leading insurance companies and over 380 registered Lloyd’s brokers, recorded gross written premiums of £55.5bn for 2024, [...]
Xlinks’ sub-sea high-wire act March 20, 2025 The story of a Moroccan wind and solar farm the size of Greater London providing energy for a country thousands of miles away would ordinarily be the preserve of sci-fi books. But Xlinks founder Simon Morrish tells Ali Lyon that the only thing stopping it from becoming a reality is the UK’s snail-paced state. Simon Morrish is [...]
Even more job cuts are set for EY March 19, 2025 After it was announced that Big Four firm EY was making cuts at the senior level, staff in its legal department were warned about redundancies. Staff in the firm’s legal arm, EY Law, were informed on Wednesday of the planned restructuring of the department. With that announcement, first reported in the Financial Times, came confirmation [...]
City law firm ties bonuses to office attendance March 19, 2025 Lawyers at A&O Shearman have been re-warned that bonuses may be affected if they fail to comply with the office attendance policy
Abolishing NHS England was a good start – now tackle the rest of the quangos March 19, 2025 The abolition of NHS England sets a welcome precedent, but unless we get rid of the laws and regulations that spawned these quangos in the first place, nothing will change, says John O’Connell Nothing ever changes. How many times have you heard that phrase when talking about the state of the nation with friends and [...]
Bloomberg breaks record for the largest private donation to London Museum March 18, 2025 Bloomberg Philanthropies has broken the record for the largest private donation to the London Museum, with a gift of £20m and a world-renowned collection of Roman artefacts. London Museum will use the money to aid its move from 150 London Wall to Smithfield market, which is currently scheduled for completion in 2026. The artefacts, which [...]