July 31st, 2008 This is a message from Actionaid, a charity which has confirmed it has sought permission with the relevant authorities for the demolition of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. We’re protesting at plans by the British mining company Vedanta Resources to open a huge strip mine to extract bauxite from the Niyamgiri sacred mountain [...]
July 28th, 2008 Until three years ago, the Dutch beer brand Heineken used a clever slogan to promote its lager in the UK market, which gave rise to a string of rather amusing television commercials. The funniest was perhaps when a posh teenage girl – all twinset and pearls and strangulated vowels – was given elocution [...]
By Ian Fraser Financial Times FTfm section July 21st, 2008 There is little talk of gloom and doom in Dublin’s International Financial Services Centre. Confidence remains undimmed despite a probable Irish recession this year, as well as possible threats to the IFSC’s dominance as a global asset servicing centre from hungrier, lower-cost destinations such as [...]
By Ian Fraser Financial News July 14th, 2008 FRANK Doyle, Investec Asset Management’s head of UK and Ireland institutional sales, is described by consultants as a positive thinker with an unusual gift for getting on with people. One consultant said: “He is an extrovert who is just as able to get on with consultants as [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times July 13th, 2008 The era of cheap credit may be little more than a fond memory, but it’s only just now that the irresponsible behaviour of some of our corporate leaders is coming home to roost. With debt unprecedentedly cheap and plentiful in the five years until last July, [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times July 13th, 2008 The idea that Scotland should be a “Celtic lion” is a neat political concept. When Alex Salmond coined the phrase last October, he made it clear his government had ambition for Scotland’s economy. Business was impressed. Here was a government prepared to set targets — for [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times July 13th, 2008 An Aberdeen-based oilfield services businesss has been snapped up by Australia-based Neptune Marine Services for an estimated £10m-£15m. Subsea Engineering Service, founded by Allister Fraser and Hugh Parker in 2002, is a specialist provider of subsea consultancy and project engineering services. The business, which has an [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times July 13th, 2008 A landmark project to build Scotland’s tallest building in Charing Cross, Glasgow, has been felled by the credit squeeze. A joint venture between Glasgow developer Elphinstone and the now bankrupt Harrogate-based developer City Lofts had been intending to start work on the £120m, 40-storey mixed use [...]
July 7th, 2008 Dear Reader, This blog is now one year old. It’s been enormous fun writing the 58 entries to date – just over one a week – over the past 12 months and thank you for all the feedback received so far. Since I started this exercise on June 28th last year, the [...]
July 7th, 2008 The total losses that global banks are going to endure as a result of the credit crunch may be much higher than previously imagined. The world’s second largest hedge fund manager, Bridgewater Associates, has just put the figure at $1,600bn (£809bn). This trumps earlier figures of $1,300bn from the hedge fund manager John Paulson [...]