By Ian Fraser The Herald October 29th, 2007 THE Royal Bank of Scotland-led takeover of ABN Amro is remarkable in a number of ways. The €71bn (£49bn) deal has already entered the record books as the largest takeover in banking history, and it is the first time that a consortium of banks has managed to [...]
By Ian Fraser and Ben Laurance The Sunday Times October 28th, 2007 ONE of Britain’s biggest food groups is up for sale in a move that could reap £275m for the company’s founder. Investment banks have been recruited to seek a buyer for Grampian Country Food Group, a major supplier of meat to UK supermarkets. [...]
October 25th, 2007 THERE once was a very good bookshop on Edinburgh’s George Street. Indeed until its closure in May 2006, the shop was probably the best bookshop in Scotland’s capital. The bookshop was called Ottakar’s and it was situated in a landmark retail unit at 57-59 George Street. The shop was bibliophile’s delight, it [...]
October 24th, 2007 WHEN Scottish & Newcastle was targeted for takeover by Australian brewer Elders IXL back in 1988 the Geordie folk band Lindisfarne leapt to its defence with a ditty called “Save Our Ales”. Nineteen years on the Edinburgh brewer is under attack all over again – this time from Denmark’s Carlsberg and Holland’s [...]
By Ian Fraser The Herald October 22nd, 2007 Measures designed to tackle the continuing dominance of the Big Four accountancy firms in the UK audit market are, “a total damp squib that will do nothing to enhance competition or choice in the market,” according to a leading professor of accountancy. The list of 15 recommendations [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times October 21st, 2007 ALEX SALMOND is not without ambition. The Linlithgow-born cheeky chappy declared his desire to transform Scotland into a “Celtic Lion” on a recent visit to the United States. Salmond believes that he, his cabinet colleague John Swinney, and his council of economic advisers, led by former [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times October 21st 2007 Spanish utlility Iberdrola has become the latest victim of the credit crunch. The Bilbao-based company has been forced to delay a bond issue and seek a one year extension of £7 billion of loans it took out to finance its acquisition of ScottishPower which completed on [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times October 21st, 2007 CALEDONIA Investments, a £1.3 billion investment trust with strong Scottish roots, is now keener to put its money into India than into its original homeland. The self-managed investment trust was founded in the 1870s to look after the fortune of the Cayzer family – a Glaswegian [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times October 21st, 2007 Craig Corporate, a Glasgow-based corporate finance advisory firm, is warning that Alistair Darling’s planned changes to capital gains tax will cause “turmoil” among Scotland’s owner-managed businesses, writes Ian Fraser. The advisory firm claims that succession plans by businesses across Scotland have been thrown into disarray by [...]
By Ian Fraser Citywire (New Model Adviser) October 15th, 2007 Wraps, fund supermarkets and platforms are increasingly offering bells and whistles including asset allocation to their intermediary users. Which do advisers see as the most attractive and user-friendly? And are there any risks to embracing these new technologies? Ian Fraser reports. MANY independent financial advisers are [...]