By Ian Fraser European Fund Manager May/June 2008 The credit crunch appears to have caused US banks to lose their scruples when it comes to attracting investment from sovereign wealth funds from emerging economies such as Abu Dhabi, China and Singapore. Indeed in a dramatic change of heart, the Americans have been actively pursuing a [...]
By Ian Fraser Financial Times FTfm section June 30th, 2008 The decision by Walter Scott to step down as chairman of Walter Scott & Partners, the Edinburgh-based firm he co-founded 25 years ago, is symptomatic of the need for an asset management group to have different types of leader and a different management approach at [...]
By Ian Fraser Accountancy Magazine June 30th, 2008 A year into President Sarkozy’s new political regime, are France and its economy reaping the benefits of promised reform? Ian Fraser reports The thousands of well-heeled French people who have flocked to London to live and work in recent years tend to look back at their homeland [...]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Herald June 29th, 2008 Analysts admit Scottish banking giant’s low market valuation is ‘getting silly’ OVERWHELMING backing last week for HBOS’s £4 billion rights issue is being seen by analysts this weekend as a turning point in the Scottish bank’s fortunes. Thursday’s vote, in which 98% of shareholders supported the initiative, may mark the [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times June 29th, 2008 Walter Scott has quit the investment management company he founded in 1983 just two years after selling it for £400m. Scott, a former nuclear physicist who was famed for wearing a kilt at business meetings, sold Edinburgh-based Walter Scott & Partners to US-based Mellon Financial Corporation [...]
By Ian Fraser The Herald Business June 26th, 2008 Chartered accountants are being advised to live by ethical codes, not just pay lip service to them BUSINESS ethics, or the lack of them, are once again coming to the fore in business circles. This is hardly surprising. The extraordinary tide of liquidity that propped up [...]
June 25th, 2008 Dubai has unveiled plans for the world’s first rotating skyscraper, designed by the Italian-Israeli architect David Fisher, who has never before designed a high rise building. The planned 80-storey edifice, which looks like sheer folly to me, will be prefabricated in Italy to speed up construction time and reduce labour costs. Scheduled for [...]
June 23rd, 2008 DUBAI is right to try and secure itself an economic future after the oil runs out. The tragedy for this tiny Arab emirate is that it has chosen to go about things in such a blatantly unsustainable way. As the emirate, with its 300,000 citizens, seeks to transform itself into a tax-free, hedonistic paradise that aims to [...]
June 18th, 2008 Over the past couple of decades the Scotch Whisky Association has been hugely successful at defending the “geographical indication” of Scotch whisky. Its efforts have ensured the product has enhanced its position and profitability in global markets when other types of drink – including brandy, vodka and gin – have lost their [...]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Herald June 15th, 2008 SCOTLAND’S housebuilders have hit out at Britain’s banks for tipping their industry into crisis and are pleading for government help to rescue them from a downturn that is expected to spark over 10,000 industry job losses in the current year. Jonathan Fair, chief executive of housebuilders’ group Homes [...]