News

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

Gold hits new high as dollar falls

November 18, 2009

US gold futures passed the $1,153 mark for the first time yesterday as investors piled into precious metals as an alternative to holding weaker US dollars. Silver, platinum and palladium also reached their highest prices in at least 14 months. In London, bullion for immediate delivery reached a record $1,153 an ounce. Gold later slipped [...]
JPMorgan eats up 1bn Caz leftovers

November 18, 2009

US INVESTMENT bank JPMorgan Chase & Co is expected to seal its £1bn buyout of the remainder of Cazenove today. JPMorgan will pay around 500p per share for the last 50 per cent of the 190-year-old British brokerage, valuing the total business at £2bn. The deal will land a multi-million pound windfall for many Cazenove [...]
Obama warns of second recession as borrowing soars

November 18, 2009

PRESIDENT Barack Obama has warned the US economy may slip into a “double-dip recession” unless urgent steps are taken to bring government borrowing under control. In his sternest warning yet on the state of America’s public finances, Obama said his administration faced a difficult balancing act of trying to encourage job creation while reducing the [...]
Guy Hands: West faces zero growth unless bad debts are written off

November 18, 2009

THE private equity industry is on a collision course with the banks amid calls for hundreds of billions in leveraged loans to be restructured to avoid Japanese-style economic stagnation. Outspoken private equity boss Guy Hands yesterday accused banks – particularly the bailed out institutions – of failing to act on bad debts to avoid admitting [...]
Paulson makes new bet on gold

November 18, 2009

John Paulson, the investor who famously notched up $20m (£12m) profits for his hedge fund betting against the housing market between 2007 and 2009, is launching a gold fund. The vehicle will buy up mining shares, gold-related derivatives and other bullion-related investments, according to three sources close to the plan. Paulson said he expects to [...]
$1bn lifeline for Japan Airlines

November 18, 2009

Japan Airlines has been offered $1bn (£598m) emergency funding from Delta Air Lines and its SkyTeam partners, as Tokyo refused to rule out allowing the carrier go bust. The package includes a $500m equity injection, a revenue guarantee worth $300m and $200m in asset-backed funding. JAL’s shares plunged to an all-time low on news the [...]
Goldman ‘saved by AIG bailout’

November 18, 2009

Goldman Sachs could have taken a serious financial hit if the US government had not intervened to support American International Group, according to a report by the inspector general. The report raises doubts over Goldman’s claim to have hedged against potential AIG losses, saying it would have struggled to liquidate its trading positions.
The Queen’s Speech starts election race

November 18, 2009

THE government yesterday laid down battle lines for the next general election with a politically charged Queen’s Speech that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats dismissed as “pointless”. The legislative programme outlined by the Queen in the House of Lords contained moves including a widely-expected Financial Services Bill, which will allow regulators to veto bankers’ bonuses [...]
How you can get a pay rise, even in a recession

November 18, 2009

1 DO YOUR RESEARCHIt’s important you find out how your salary compares to that of other people working in your sector – if you’re paid at or above the average for people in your position, demanding a pay rise is going to be unrealistic, especially in the current climate. There are a number of online [...]
Art collections at banks are becoming a big business

November 17, 2009

YESTERDAY it was announced that Asia’s biggest art fair, the Hong Kong-based Art HK, is to be sponsored for the next five years by Deutsche Bank. The fair’s previous sponsor, Lehman Brothers, had its art collection auctioned off earlier this month to the tune of $1.35m, including works by Pop Art superstars Roy Lichtenstein and [...]