May 27th, 2008 Ross Buckley, professor of international finance law at the University of New South Wales, yesterday argued that the way our bankers are paid has promoted a “systemic madness” across the global financial system. In an article in The Australian he points out that the way banks reward their staff – offering them the carrot [...]
May 25th, 2008 THE LAW firm Mishcon de Reya is home to some of the UK’s most expensive divorce lawyers. It would appear that, having recently represented Heather Mills in her divorce case against Sir Paul McCartney, they are now skillfully manipulating the media to drum up further business. An article headlined “Love is … a good job and [...]
May 16th, 2008 Maybe Andrew Neil was not so daft after all. In 2002, the man known to readers of Private Eye as “Brillo pad” hatched a plan to merge The Scotsman, of which he was then the editor-in-chief and publisher, with The Herald. Other titles including the Sunday Herald and Scotland on Sunday would have suffered [...]
By Ian Fraser Financial News May 14th, 2008 Fears are growing over infrastructure’s ability to sustain low-risk absolute returns. However, there is little sign that pension schemes’ appetite is waning. Funds specialising in the asset class raised £29.9bn (€39bn) last year, double the previous year, according to Private Equity Intelligence. The data provider estimates there [...]
May 12th, 2008 It makes you proud to be British doesn’t it? Not only is Britain itself widely regarded as one of the world’s best tax havens by the super-rich (because of our very accommodating non-dom rules), but we’re also fuelling global poverty because so many of our former colonies have become “no questions asked” [...]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Herald May 11th, 2008 Despite large number of bidders, lower than hoped valuation likely WITH A race to acquire RBS’s insurance businesses starting early this week, sources close to the deal have warned that a large field of bidders is unlikely to result in the Edinburgh-based bank achieving much more than [...]
May 6th, 2008 ATTEMPTS by the Guardian to call a truce in its legal dispute with Tesco over allegations of tax avoidance have fallen on deaf ears at the Hertfordshire-based supermarket group. In several articles published on Saturday, the Guardian apologised for certain of its key claims but maintained that there remain issues around alleged [...]
By Ian Fraser CA Magazine May 5th, 2008 It may be the home of golf, but factors such as cost, weather and old-fashioned attitudes are leading some to turn to warmer climes such as Dubai, South Africa and even China. Still, as Ian Fraser reports, major investment is under way to create more top quality [...]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Herald May 4th, 2008 ANDY Hornby may have come top of his class at Harvard Business School but this does not seem to have made him an especially good banker. Before becoming HBOS chief executive in July 2006, Hornby – who once ran the cheap-and-cheerful George clothing brand at Asda – [...]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Herald May 4th, 2008 PETER CUMMINGS, chief executive of Bank of Scotland Corporate, has defended the bank’s decision to take big equity stakes in two of the UK’s leading house-building companies at the onset of the credit crunch. Cummings defended the Edinburgh-based bank’s decision to provide debt and equity funding at [...]