By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: August 29th, 2010 Martin Gilbert, chief executive of Aberdeen Asset Management, has declared that big institutions that straddle the investment and mainstream banking divide should be broken up. Echoing the views of Scots economist and author John Kay, who coined the widely used “casino” and “utility” banking analogy [...]
August 28th, 2010 [Editorial Note: This article was written in June 2010 but has not previously been published in its entirety. An edited version was published in The Sunday Times on June 27th, 2010] Directors of an aviation business that went bust owing HBOS £113 million in September 2007 were allowed to buy the business back [...]
August 27th, 2010 The founder and owner of Quayside Corporate Services — a self-styled turnaround consultancy that was pivotal to the Bank of Scotland Reading scandal – has lately been stepping down from a surprising number of boards. In June David Mills, 53, quit the board of Cardiff-based revolving credit company Clode Group Holdings, as well [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: The Sunday Times Date: August 22nd, 2010 The Hebridean island has teamed up with energy giant Scottish Power to tap a reliable source of electricity with underwater turbines When the MV Eilean Dhiura ferry crosses the Sound of Islay, passengers often think she is heading in the wrong direction. The small [...]
August 20th, 2010 The Camp for Climate Action, which was set up on parkland behind the Royal Bank of Scotland’s world headquarters at Gogarburn in Edinburgh on Wednesday night, is deploying spectacular tactics to make what in my view is a valid point. The campers, including my nephew, wrongfooted the police and RBS security by arriving a day [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: August 15th, 2010 Interview of the week: Angus Macdonald (image from Sunday Herald) A little over three years ago, Angus MacDonald saw the future… and he decided it was rubbish. This was nothing to do with his outlook on life, though. The Highland entrepreneur, fresh from selling his [...]
August 12th, 2010 If, in our western capitalist economies, we think of profit-hunting banks as being like a pride of lions hunting, non-financial industry is comparable to lionesses who often do the actual work. The banks are the males who spend all day lazing in the sun, but get the first pickings of any kill, [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: August 8th, 2010 Three years after the onset of the credit crisis, when several British banks narrowly avoided bankruptcy thanks to Government intervention, it seems the prescribed regime of management clear-outs, capital rebuilding, global retrenchment, cost-cutting and a more considered approach to lending is beginning to bear fruit. [...]
August 7th, 2010 In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph (which is different from the video interview above) Eric Daniels, chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, has at last started to talk some sense. Daniels told Telegraph business editor Damian Reece that Lloyds TSB did us all a tremendous favour by taking over HBOS in [...]
August 7th, 2010 Do the world’s leading banks have a firm handle on the true value of their assets, risk exposure (including the likelihood of their borrowers defaulting), solvency, liquidity and capital strength? And even if they do have such information at their fingertips, are they accurately communicating it into the public domain for the [...]