By Ian Fraser Financial Times October 31st, 2008 The humbling of Scotland’s once proud and buccaneering banking sector, coupled with the near certainty of a recession in Scotland and the UK as a whole, spell hard times ahead for many in the country’s professional services sector. Before the credit bubble burst, Scotland’s battalions of lawyers [...]
By Ian Fraser Financial Times October 31st, 2008 Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, wants to boost economic growth and transform Scotland into a “Celtic tiger”. But he is bound to fail unless the country’s universities are better-funded, according to Universities Scotland, lobby group for the country’s universities. The 14 institutions receive £1bn ($1.6bn) a year [...]
October 29th, 2008 Crosby – out of control? Yet another former senior executive at HBOS has come forward to admit that the bank threw caution to the wind in its pursuit of market share under former chief executive Sir James Crosby. Paul Moore, the Edinburgh-based bank’s head of regulatory risk between 2002 and 2004, told [...]
October 27th, 2008 The giant pyramid-selling scheme that was Dubai’s over-heated property market is now, officially, unravelling. This is happening because the fuel that’s been propelling the emirate’s property price bubble and its construction boom – cheap and plentiful credit – is drying up as banks globally pull in their horns as a result of [...]
October 20th, 2008 (Note: this is the full, unedited version of an article commissioned by the Mail on Sunday on October 16, 2008. see published version here) SIR Fred Goodwin, the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, seemed extraordinarily chipper and relaxed as he hosted a champagne reception for Scottish politicians, journalists and editors [...]
By Ian Fraser Financial News October 20th, 2008 AT a time when most property investors were retrenching or fleeing for the hills, Aberdeen Property Investors, run by chief executive Rickard Backlund from Stockholm, went on the offensive. Aberdeen Asset Management made two chunky acquisitions this year, enabling its Aberdeen Property Investors subsidiary to leapfrog rivals [...]
By Ian Fraser Financial News October 20th, 2008 MERCER Investment Consulting, like most other investment advisers, has been changing its spots to suit the highly volatile and unpredictable economic climate. Traditionally, firms like Mercer focused on advising institutional investors on their long-term asset allocations and the selection of fund managers. However, that not the highest [...]
October 19th, 2008 YESTERDAY, I heard an interesting new take on the banking and financial crisis from Roger Steare. This revolves around the idea that, since the world’s resources are finite, mankind is foolhardy to expect economies to keep growing year on year. Steare, a visiting professor of organisational ethics at Cass Business School, believes [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: The Sunday Times Date: October 19th, 2008 Furious investors who claim they were badly advised about the enhanced fund may lose millions Thousands of Britain’s wealthiest investors, including an Edinburgh-based international entrepreneur of the year, risk losing as much as one-quarter of what they put into a “low-risk” money market fund [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: The Mail on Sunday Date: October 19th, 2009 AS the Royal Bank of Scotland announces that the reign of chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin will officially end on January 31, the nation’s flagship bank takes an uneasy step toward an uncertain future. Here, Ian Fraser, a leading financial commentator who has [...]