News

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

Hester fights to hang on to Citizens in US

November 1, 2009

ROYAL Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester is fighting tooth and nail to keep Citizens, the group’s flagship American retail banking business, on its books after it emerged that Europe is considering forcing it to divest the brand in the interests of competition. Citizens, which has over 1,480 branches in the US, is regarded [...]
Bank plan could cost 40bn

November 1, 2009

THE Government may have to find a further £40bn to fund the continuing restructuring of Lloyds, RBS and Northern Rock, it emerged yesterday. The biggest injection will be into RBS, which might receive as much as £26bn as a result of participating in the government’s toxic insurance scheme. Lloyds Banking Group will need up to [...]
Lloyds close to agreeing break fee of 2.5bn

November 1, 2009

LLOYDS Banking Group and the Treasury are close to rubber-stamping a deal under which the bank will fork out a break fee of £2.5bn to exit the government’s asset protection scheme (APS). An announcement is expected possibly as early as tomorrow on the exact terms of Lloyds’ exit from the state-backed scheme, into which it [...]
Kraft’s offer softened by lack of rivals

November 1, 2009

CONFECTIONERY group Cadbury could get an improved takeover offer from suitor Kraft this week, although it may fall short of investors’ hopes due to a lack of rival bids. It is understood the US maker of Dairylea cheese may make a £10.5bn offer for the Dairy Milk firm, higher than the £9.9billion offered by Kraft [...]
C&W expected to revive plans for de-merger

November 1, 2009

The City is expecting Cable & Wireless to announce the resurrection of its de-merger plans when it posts its first-half results this week, giving the company’s shares a much-needed boost. The telecoms firm put plans to split up its UK and International businesses on hold in November, at the height of the financial crisis, but [...]
Roger Bootle gives warning on UK growth

November 1, 2009

THE COMING public spending squeeze could cut Britain’s annual growth by up to two percentage points, a report warns today. With the government finances in the worst shape for at least half a century and public debt heading towards 100 per cent of gross domestic product, major spending cuts which will have profound effects on [...]
Business leaders urge political party heads to balance the budget by 2015

November 1, 2009

LEADERS of the three main political parties will face calls for urgent action to balance the national books at the annual conference of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) later this month. The business lobby group will urge Conservative leader David Cameron, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and an as-yet unidentified “senior member of the [...]
DELOITTE CONSULTANT DUSTS OFF DANCING SHOES IN CINEMA DEBUT

November 1, 2009

HERE at City PM, we like to champion the interests of our dear parishioners, and there’s nothing The Capitalist likes better than hearing about one of the flock with aspirations in the glitzy world of showbiz. Step forward Sanjay Shah, a consultant at Deloitte, whose debut on the silver screen was shown across London for [...]
BILL OF THE WEEK

November 1, 2009

OVER to French-Asian restaurant L’Etranger on Gloucester Road this week, where this large group of raucous City boys and girls certainly had something to celebrate. Our happy patrons dined off the £48 set menu, munching on everything from crispy squid with chilli and spring onion to caramelised black cod with miso, shoulder of lamb and [...]
Barclays at a loss after K1 hedgie fraud

November 1, 2009

BARCLAYS may have lost up to $240m (£146m) in a case involving a German hedge fund founder arrested following a corruption probe into a caribbean-registered fund he ran. The bank is among a number of institutions affected by the case, in which German and US authorities are investigating Helmut Kiener, 50, who founded Germany’s K1 [...]