The doctor’s ticket to success August 19, 2010 FOR a business venture to get off the ground, it needs to fill a gap in the market. Robin Wells’ latest venture mytrainticket.co.uk has found more of a gulf than a gap. The serial entrepreneur/angel investor came across the business opportunity – a rail version of air travel ticket booking sites – 18 months ago. [...]
Wall Street fumes over GM fee cut August 16, 2010 WALL STREET has been left fuming after an exceptionally cheap pitch from Goldman Sachs led the US Treasury to slash fees for all banking advisers on its impending $20bn (£13bn) flotation of General Motors. Goldman, which was mired in allegations of securities fraud when it applied for a role in the GM initial public offering [...]
THE CITY’S GOT TALENT: OUR TOP TEN LOVELIEST LADIES August 12, 2010 1 GEORGIA RAIMES WORLD FIRST Last year’s winner, the gorgeous Sarah Davison of RBS Sempra, was always going to be a tough act to follow, but the City has found an eminently worthy successor in the form of brunette bombshell Georgia Raimes. The lovely Georgia is a forex dealer on the private client desk at [...]
China’s power is truly extraordinary August 4, 2010 REMEMBER the days when manufacturing was concentrated in the G7, while emerging economies supplied raw materials and components to feed rich nations’ demand? If you do, you are clearly showing your age. Even in 2008, as Stephen Lewis from Monument Securities points out, China produced more steel than the USA, the EU and Japan put [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 29, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES LI KA-SHING PAYS £5.8BN FOR UK UTILITY EDF of France is set to sell its UK electricity networks business to Cheung Kong Infrastructure of Hong Kong for £5.8bn, 45 per cent more than the price originally suggested for the deal, according to a person close to the negotiations. The state-controlled French electricity group [...]
GM plots listing July 23, 2010 GENERAL Motors plans to file its registration for an initial public offering during the week of 16 August, just after the expected date for its second quarter results, according to US sources. A GM filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission would be the first step towards an IPO to reduce the US government’s [...]
GM plots IPO to reduce government stake July 23, 2010 GENERAL Motors plans to file its registration for an initial public offering during the week of 16 August, just after the expected date for its second quarter results, according to US sources. A GM filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission would be the first step towards an IPO to reduce the US government’s [...]
Close Brothers predicts “solid” year July 23, 2010 MERCHANT bank Close Brothers predicted it would report solid full-year results and that it had seen a slight, if fragile, improvement in bad debts among its customers. “The bad debt ratio improved marginally during the five months to 30 June 2010 although remains sensitive to the economic environment,” the company said in a trading statement [...]
GM snaps up AmeriCredit July 22, 2010 US car giant General Motors (GM) yesterday said it would acquire auto finance company AmeriCredit for $3.5bn (£2.29bn) in cash in a deal aimed at easing financing terms for subprime car buyers. The deal, which remains subject to approval by AmeriCredit’s shareholders, would give GM a captive finance arm for the first time since it [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 13, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES BANK TEAMS RUSH TO SET UP NEW FUNDS The hedge fund industry is seeing a rush of start-ups amid a series of high-profile spin-outs from the in-house trading teams at investment banks. In spite of one of the worst second-quarter performances for the industry on record, the new funds also are attracting strong [...]