By Ian Fraser and Michael Tait Published: The Mail on Sunday Date: November 9th, 2008 Top bankers launch amazing boardroom coup TWO of Scotland’s most prominent bankers yesterday launched an audacious coup to take control of troubled HBOS. Sir Peter Burt and Sir George Mathewson have demanded the resignation of HBOS chairman Lord Dennis Stevenson. [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: The Herald Business Date: November 6th, 2008 The accountancy firms that audited our distressed banks are now coming under increased scrutiny The partners of “Big Four” accountancy firms have good reason to feel nervous at the moment. Already the world’s largest accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, which was responsible for the audits of [...]
November 4th, 2008 It is a disgrace that Andy Hornby, the man who has as good as destroyed HBOS, has been handed a £60,000 a month contract by Sir Victor Blank, the chairman of Lloyds, to help integrate the two banks. Perhaps this is his reward for delivering HBOS into the jaws of Lloyds for [...]
By Ian Fraser Financial Times (FTfm section) November 3rd 2008 Lifecycle investing, in which an individual’s pension plan is invested in more volatile asset classes such as equities during their younger years, but shifted into safer assets like bonds nearer to retirement, is today widely favoured as an investment strategy for defined contribution pensions in [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: European Venture Capital Journal Date: November 3rd, 2008 LPs are keen to balance exposure to the US and EU LIMITED partners, battered by the credit crunch, are not intoxicated with Asia right now. However, for reasons including their historical over-allocation to developed economies, the comparative stability of developing Asian economies compared [...]
November 2nd, 2008 Bruce R Bent, founder and chairman of the New York-based cash management firm The Reserve, is in a spot of bother at the moment. The 71-year-old American, widely credited with having invented the money market fund in the 1970s, has finally started paying back investors in his Reserve Primary Fund, from which [...]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Herald November 2nd, 2008 Gloves come off as English bank threatens to sue The Scotsman Lloyds TSB’s most senior Scottish-based executive has talked up the merits of the London bank’s planned takeover of HBOS, a deal which on Friday was greenlighted by the business secretary Lord Mandelson, despite concerns it will [...]