News

Your daily news update straight from the City PM newsroom in London

Insurers will be hit by 100m flood bill

November 22, 2009

DAMAGE from the floods in Cumbria and south Scotland could cost insurers more than £100m, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) said yesterday. The body also warned that up to 1,000 claims had been received by insurers already, but that it was too early to say what the total damage bill will be. The ABI [...]
TURNING JAPANESE

November 22, 2009

DAME Clara Furse, renowned in the City for her combative style while chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, is set to join the international board of Nomura. The appointment is a coup for the Japanese Bank which has been hit by high profile gender discrimination law suits. The international board is chaired by former [...]
Volkswagen to triple China sales

November 22, 2009

Europe’s biggest carmaker, Volkswagen, is planning to more than triple its sales in south China by 2018, as it seeks to drive its strategy to double sales to 2m units in the the country by that time, its China chief said yesterday. Volkswagen, which competes with General Motors and others globally, is stepping up its [...]
BlackRock to invest in hospitals

November 22, 2009

BlackRock, one of the biggest fund managers in the world, is looking to invest £20m into the UK’s fastest growing independent hospital operator. Health Investment Holdings Group (HIHL) runs hospitals via a partnership between doctors, nurses and ancillary staff. At the start of November, Labour voiced its backing for John Lewis-style partnerships to operate some [...]
Bolland’s exit creates a gap

November 22, 2009

Marc Bolland’s defection from WM Morrison to Marks & Spencer may have signalled the end of one succession saga – but has promptly sparked another, as the City clamours to predict who will fill the Dutchman’s shoes. Bolland is widely credited with transforming Morrison’s after its problematic acquisition of Safeway in 2004. When news broke [...]
Irish president agrees to bad loans plan to bail out banks

November 22, 2009

IRISH President Mary McAleese has signed the legislation establishing the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA); a “bad bank”, allowing the government to start cleaning up banks’ balance sheets. The government, which has already been recruiting staff for NAMA, can now formally launch the agency that will pay €54 bn (£49 bn) to cleanse banks of [...]
Record October volumes for Plus

November 22, 2009

Stock exchange group Plus Markets reported record trading over the month of October after it diversified into Aim share trading on its platform in the summer. Equity trading volumes reached over 11bn shares in October, a 238 per cent increase on the same month last year. The group, which specialises in smaller-cap stocks but also [...]
Treasury hits back at WTO’s bailout attack

November 22, 2009

THE government last night defended bank bailouts in retaliation to suggestions by the World Trade Organisation that Britain may have contravened trade laws in keeping Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group afloat. The Treasury responded with surprise to comments from WTO director general Pascal Lamy that bank bailouts may amount to “financial protectionism”. [...]
City survivors are helped by reduced competition

November 22, 2009

Many of my colleagues in the financial services industry, particularly those working in sectors that had little or nothing to do with the financial crisis, feel they have been unfairly castigated. Of course parts of the financial services industry fully deserve the approbation that has been heaped upon them but the majority do not. It [...]
Westinghouse says Shaw deal won’t hit UKjobless

November 22, 2009

NUCLEAR company Westinghouse hit out at claims yesterday that an impending power plant contract would cost the UK thousands of jobs. The group, which Japanese firm Toshiba bought three years ago from the government, is set to announce a deal with Shaw Group, one of its largest shareholders, in the next fortnight. US-based Shaw Group [...]