City’s brightest named in legal hot 100 line-up January 28, 2013 SOME of the City’s top lawyers have been named on the industry’s annual Hot 100 list, including the silk helping Guardian Care Homes pursue Barclays for Libor-related mis-selling and the partner leading Co-op through its bid for Lloyds bank branches. The Lawyer magazine’s 2013 list, released yesterday, singles out 100 legal names to watch this [...]
City Views | Should the government spend £33bn on high speed two? January 28, 2013 STEPHEN HARRIS ACCOUNTANT AND INSOLVENCY PRACTIONER It is a complete and utter waste of money. You cannot balance the books of the country by ploughing money into black hole infrastructure projects. Not one penny of public money should go into HS2. BRYAN HASLAM NETWORK INTERLINKS Yes. Anything with better connections across the country will be [...]
City Moves for 24 January 2013 | Who’s switching jobs January 23, 2013 Lloyds Commercial Banking Anthony Williams has been appointed head of consumer services and entrepreneurs at Lloyds. He joins from Westhouse Securities, the advisory firm. Williams has over 25 years’ experience in banking, and has also held roles at ABN Amro/RBS, most recently as head of consumer sector advisory. Altius Associates Joachim Suter has been appointed [...]
HMV boss vows brand has high street future January 15, 2013 THE BOSS OF HMV said yesterday he was “convinced” the crisis-hit music chain still has a future on the high street, as a number of firms emerged as potential bidders for the company. Deloitte was officially appointed as administrator to HMV yesterday morning, putting 4,123 jobs at its headquarters and 223 stores at risk. But [...]
Day the music died January 14, 2013 HMV has collapsed into administration after last-ditch attempts to save the crisis-hit music retailer came to an abrupt end last night, putting 4,000 jobs at risk and signalling the end of more than 90 years on the British high street. Deloitte, which has been advising HMV’s consortium of lenders led by Lloyds Banking Group and [...]
What the other papers say this morning January 7, 2013 FINANCIAL TIMES Icelandic raider pleads not guilty Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson, the Icelandic corporate raider who used to own large parts of the UK high street, has pleaded not guilty as one of the most notorious sagas in the collapse of the Icelandic banking system came to court. Obama announces new security team Barack Obama has [...]
Retail failures on the up amid weak demand January 2, 2013 THE NUMBER of retailers falling into administration rose by six per cent last year as the squeeze on consumer spending and the shift of spending towards the internet saw names such as JJB and Comet disappear from the high street. Figures published yesterday by Deloitte, the accountancy firm, show that 194 retailers fell into administration [...]
Cable mulls insolvency shakeup December 20, 2012 ■ Business secretary Vince Cable yesterday floated the idea of shaking up the UK’s insolvency rules amid questions around the controversial collapse of electrical retailer Comet. Cable told the House of Commons: “There may well be better ways of handling insolvency. We should have an open mind about other approaches. The American Chapter 11 system [...]
City Moves | Who’s switching jobs December 20, 2012 Squire Sanders The law firm has announced two appointments to its financial services practice group. Philippa Chadwick joins as a partner from Berwin Leighton Paisner, where she led its project finance team. Paula Laird joins as a banking and finance partner from Wragge & Co, where she was head of banking. Laird has also held [...]
The euro heroically survived 2012 but new dangers await next year December 20, 2012 NO REVIEW of the global economy in 2012 could fail to focus on Europe’s long-running and ever-changing debt crisis. The continent is emerging from its most difficult year since the birth of the euro. It’s in a better shape than many expected, but European policymakers still face formidable challenges in 2013. The year has been [...]