BP disaster bill hits $2bn June 21, 2010 Oil giant BP has admitted that the cost of its response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has hit $2bn (£1.3bn) and it has paid out $105m in damages to those affected by the disaster. BP added in a statement that it rejected claims by its partner in the oil well, Anadarko Petroleum that [...]
The bike and car parts retailer who wants to own Britain on the move June 20, 2010 Halfords and its chief executive David Wild are having a good recession. Earlier this month, the bikes and car maintenance retail chain posted a strong set of full-year figures: pre-tax profits rose 42 per cent to £110m, while sales rose three per cent to £832m. The FTSE 250 business said the trend for healthy living [...]
Accountants are vital for boosting economies right across the world June 16, 2010 IT’S clear we are living in unprecedented economic times. Indicators from various sources – including the latest quarterly survey of ACCA members, the largest of its kind in the world – suggest “cautious optimism”, and no more, is appropriate. In 2010, the financial services sector continues to dominate all levels of debate, from its willingness [...]
Charles Stanley: No living wills June 8, 2010 SIR DAVID Howard, the former Lord Mayor and chairman of stockbroker Charles Stanley, yesterday warned that the Treasury’s proposals to introduce “living wills” for financial firms could cost the sector hundreds of millions of pounds in lost profits. Howard said the cost of such a move to Charles Stanley would be around £1m, meaning that [...]
Denton Wilde Sapte joins the rush for transatlantic law firm mergers June 6, 2010 MERGERS and acquisitions are rattling along at quite a pace among transatlantic law firms – unlike at the corporate clients they service, many of which are still finding the M&A game a little hard going at the moment, not least of course Prudential. The latest legal mega-deal repays a closer look. The City’s Denton Wilde [...]
The City must stop talent trickling overseas May 20, 2010 CONFIRMATION that the UK is slipping down the list of the world’s most competitive countries comes as no surprise but is a situation that surely must be remedied before irreparable damage is done to our economy. The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook identified the UK as falling one place to 22nd in the world rankings. Bearing [...]
RPI inflation sees sharpest jump since ‘91 May 18, 2010 NEW chancellor George Osborne yesterday called on the Bank of England to accelerate plans to reintroduce house prices into the benchmark rate of inflation, after the housing-linked index in April recorded its biggest monthly increase in two decades. The consumer price index (CPI) – the official inflation measure which does not currently take housing into [...]
My corporate jet is easyJet: meet the platform boss taking on the LSE May 17, 2010 HE TALKS LOUDLY and moves fast. Alasdair Haynes, the chief executive of the pan-European trading platform Chi-X Europe, cuts a larger than life figure. The boss of the trading platform, which has grabbed a 30 per cent share of FTSE 100 trading from long-established rival the London Stock Exchange (LSE) since it was set up [...]
Markets fear Greek disaster May 5, 2010 FEARS Greece’s debt crisis could spread to other countries continued to hit markets yesterday fuelled by a threat by Moody’s rating agency that it may downgrade Portugal. The FTSE 100 crashed 1.3 per cent, while the euro plummeted to $1.2801 – its weakest level against the dollar since March 2009. The cost of insuring Spanish [...]
Why the euro is an economic absurdity May 5, 2010 I REALLY wasn’t sure what to expect when I went to meet Bertrand des Pallieres. This is the man, after all, who lightened the gloom in the middle of the financial crisis with the story that his £80,000 Maserati had been towed, but that he was “too busy” setting up his hedge fund, SPQR, to [...]