PERSONAL FINANCE NEWS September 23, 2010 LONDONERS WORRY ABOUT DEBT… R3, an insolvency trade body, has conducted research showing that 40 per cent of adults in the UK are anxious about their personal debt levels. Londoners are most affected: 49 per cent admitted being concerned. Nationwide, credit card debt is the source of the greatest worry at 51 per cent, followed [...]
Workers struggle before each monthly payday, research finds September 19, 2010 MORE than four in 10 adults in Britain struggle each month to make it to payday, according to research for insolvency trade body R3, which shows that for the average person this struggle begins on the 20th day after payday. The main causes for this struggle, cited by around 50 per cent of respondents, are [...]
Government cuts herald tough times for services firms September 12, 2010 CONNAUGHT’S high-profile collapse has ushered in a period of intense difficulty for other services companies, according to the latest monthly City A.M./Begbies Traynor health monitor for the Square Mile. The social housing maintenance specialist, which fell into administration last week, is not alone in having felt the pressure of impending government spending cutbacks and poor-quality [...]
KPMG looks to hand over Connaught jobs September 8, 2010 HOUSING repair firm Connaught formally appointed KPMG as its administrator yesterday, as rival property companies looked to take over the collapsed firm’s contracts. KPMG will keep the firm’s property maintenance arm trading until it has farmed out its contracts to other providers. Around 4,400 people face redundancy. Richard Heis, joint administrator, said the group had [...]
Connaught “on brink of administration” September 7, 2010 Connaught, the property services group that specialises in social housing, is on the brink of going into administration, the BBC has reported. The company, which employs 10,000 people, has suspended trading of its shares, and said a further announcement would be made “in due course”. Connaught has £220m of debt, provided by six banks and [...]
Bernanke: I messed up over Lehman September 2, 2010 US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke yesterday said he was partly to blame for leaving the wrong impression that the central bank could have saved Lehman Brothers from failure in 2008. Bernanke, testifying before a congressional commission examining the causes of the worst financial crisis in 80 years, said he thought it “very likely” the [...]
UK industrial output dips August 6, 2010 UK industrial output fell by 0.5 per cent in June compared the previous month, according to official figures. The Office for National Statistics said industrial output fell 0.5 per cent in June, confounding forecasts for a 0.2 percent rise, after oil and gas output fell 6.0 percent on the month, its biggest fall in just [...]
Bankruptcies fall 21pc but overstretched borrowers find other ways to go bust August 4, 2010 PERSONAL bankruptcies fell to pre-recession levels in the second quarter, but the headline drop masked a rush by troubled consumers for alternative ways to resolve their woes. Despite a 21 per cent year-on-year decline in bankruptcies, 380 people entered into insolvency every day during the three months, according to accountancy firm RSM Tenon. Debt relief [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS July 28, 2010 Collins Stewart The financial advisory group has appointed a new equity research, sales and corporate broking team, focused on the mining sector and headed by John McGloin (pictured). McGloin has worked as an analyst for the past eight years at Beeson Gregory and Evolution. He is joined by mining analysts Tim Dudley and Andrei Kroupnik; [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 25, 2010 THE SUNDAYS The Sunday Telegraph FUND CHIEF SLAMS OFWAT One of Britain’s leading investors in the UK’s water industry has said that Ofwat is “dysfunctional” and should be merged with the electricity regulator, Ofgem. Neil Woodford, leading fund manager for Invesco Perpetual, said that the water regulator did not understand the equity market and that [...]