Dutch firm ING DIRECT N.V. has today announced that it has closed its public takeover offer for Interhyp. Interhyp is Germany’s largest independent residential mortgage distributor. A total of 91.21% of Interhyp’s shares were tendered, and as a result ING has acquired the controlling stake it wanted. Last Wednesday the public tender acceptance period expired, [...]
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) has reported that confidence in the banking, finance and insurance sector is at a record low. In the three months to the end of June, the Institute’s Business Confidence Monitor (BCM) for the sector fell to -37.6, down from -34.4 in the previous quarter. By [...]
Investment bank, Merrill Lynch, is continuing its cost-cutting programme with a freeze on staff recruitment that will cost further jobs in the UK. According to reports in the press, the bank has warned staff that 5,000 job cuts worldwide are to be followed by a recruitment freeze that will shrink its 4,500 London-based staff further. [...]
Bradford & Bingley (B&B) is appointing Richard Pym, who retired last summer from 15 years at the helm of Alliance & Leicester, as its new chief executive. Mr Pym will be replacing Steven Crawshaw who resigned in June on grounds of ill health, as the embattled buy-to-let lender struggled to raise £400 million in capital [...]
Wells Fargo & Company and Century Bancshares, Inc. have reached a definitive agreement whereby Wells Fargo will acquire Century Bancshares, and its banking operations in Dallas-Fort Worth, and Texarkana, Texas and Arkansas. The merger will be stock-for-stock, and will result in Arkansas becoming Wells Fargo’s 24th state of business. However, the signed deal remains subject [...]
Wachovia Insurance Services has announced the appointment of Luther Lockwood to the post of managing principal of for Wachau Insurance Services Inc., formerly Barry, Evans, Josephs and Snipes. Wachau Insurance Services is affiliated with M Financial Group, and is a unit of Wachovia Insurance Services. Its previous name of Barry, Evans, Josephs and Snipes (BEJS) [...]
Contact centre consultancy services firm Sabio has released an innovative, safe, credit card payment solution. The solution has been designed specifically to remove the potential danger of fraud occurring when customers make credit card payments when calling a call centre. Call centre operators will be particularly pleased that the new solution not only accords with [...]
Independent investment bank Collins Stewart has announced the appointment of Paul Leyland as a leisure and gaming analyst. He leaves behind Arbuthnot Securities where he covered the leisure sector generally and gambling stocks in particular, to join Collins Stewart. During his career, he has also worked for WestLB and Seymour Pierce analysing leisure and gambling [...]
Financial services firm Merriman Curhan Ford has announced the twin appointments of John W. Chambers and Michael A. Margolis, R.Ph. Both men will be based at the firm’s officer in New York to serve as managing directors within its healthcare investment banking practice. Chambers will take on duties not just as a healthcare MD, but [...]
Alliance & Leicester has named TV host, Gok Wan, as the first celebrity expert on its Bank’s Premier 21 Master Class Programme, which begins today. The Programme has been created in order to kick-start the careers of 16-21 year olds who have left full-time education. According to research by the bank, 52% of respondents consider [...]
Dutch bank ING has revealed its results for the second quarter of this year. Underlying net profit fell to 1,946m euros, slumping by 28% from the equivalent period last year due to a declining income from investments. In addition profit per share fell by just over 20% to 0.94 euros. The credit crunch and ensuing [...]
Nomura has bolstered its Foreign Exchange market capability with the appointment of Bernd Bröker. He brings great experience to his role, having served with Bear Stearns for more than a decade as European head of Foreign Exchange and Commodities, global head of Foreign Exchange Derivatives and European co-head of Emerging markets. During his career he [...]
International investment banking boutique, Evercore Partners, has forged an alliance with G5 Advisors, an investment banking firm based in São Paulo, to jointly offer advice to Brazilian companies about cross-border transactions. Evercore and G5 will collaborate closely to offer advisory services relating to transnational M&A deals between companies based in Brazil and those outside of [...]
Inflation continues to rise beyond the desired level. The Bank of England is tasked with keeping inflation as close as is possible to the government target of 2% (according to the Consumer Prices Index, or CPI, measure). However, today the CPI rate was revealed to have leapt from 3.8% to 4.4% last month. Petrol prices [...]
HypoVereinsbank (HVB) has announced the appointment of Angelo Brizi as chief operating officer of HVB Banque Luxembourg S.A. Brizi brings with him 27 years of international banking experience, and during his career has worked for a large number of firms including Continental Bank N.A. and Citibank N.A amongst others. He joins HVB from Capitalia Luxembourg [...]
The Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) platform of Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank, has raised assets of more than 15bn euros during the last 18 months when the platform was established in January of last year. Deutsche Bank’s head of db x-trackers, Thorsten Michalik, has described the firm as the leader in Europe in terms of [...]
Credit Suisse has announced a trio of appointments to bolster its investment banking capabilities for India. The Mumbai-based Investment Banking Department gains two new managing directors, Sughosh Moharikar and Samita Sha. Moharikar leaves behind the position of executive director and M&A chief with Kotak Mahindra, where he worked for 14 years, to join the firm. [...]
Trent Doughty has been named by Deutsche Bank as the firm’s new head of private wealth management for Australia and New Zealand. Doughty has been with Germany’s largest bank since 2007, when he joined in Singapore. Before joining the firm he worked for Citigroup in both Hong Kong and Singapore. Earlier in his career, and [...]
Asset management and financial services firm The Blackstone Group has formed a new business group, dedicated to investments in the cleantech energy sector. In addition, the newly established group will offer advice across Blackstone regarding renewable energy sources. James Kiggen is to lead the new group, having joined Blackstone as a senior managing director in [...]
