Lloyds Banking Group has announced changes in its senior management structure as follows: Truett Tate, group executive director for wholesale, will retire this month. The sixty-one-year-old joined the group in 2003 as managing director, corporate banking, before being appointed to the Board in 2004. Andrew Gézcy, managing director of wholesale banking and markets, will report [...]
Morgan Stanley has today announced the appointment of 210 managing directors. The bank has published a list of names beginning with Tim Abbott, ending with Risana Zitha and with Derek Laws appearing at the midway point. However, no further details of the appointments or the group’s strategy in making them are provided.
Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, is working on the next stage of making the City a hub for trading in China’s currency, the renminbi, or yuan. The Chancellor, who is attending an Asian Financial Forum conference in Hong Kong, told the BBC: “London is perfectly placed to act as a gateway for Asian banking [...]
Nomura has announced that Jasjit Bhattal is to retire from his position as president and chief executive officer of the group’s wholesale division, and deputy president of Nomura Holdings. Mr Bhattal’s responsibilities will be assumed on an interim basis by Nomura group chief operating officer and chairman for wholesale, Takumi Shibata, who will also determine [...]
The Accountancy and Actuarial Disciplinary Board (AADB) of the Financial Reporting Council has fined PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) £1.4 million, following a disciplinary hearing regarding audits of JP Morgan Securities’ (JPMS) accounts over a number of years. The case hinged on PwC’s role in reporting to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) JPMS’s compliance or otherwise with rules [...]
In its latest quarterly report, the Bank for International Settlements suggests that the UK’s use of Quantitative Easing in the form of the Bank of England’s Asset Purchase Facility (APF) has its limitations. Despite the outlook for UK economic growth worsening by the day, QE may be one policy action that the Bank will have [...]
The Bank of England has felt the need to introduce a new emergency liquidity facility, despite last week’s coordinated action by a number of central banks to improve liquidity and ease strains in the financial markets. Since then, “continuing exceptional stresses” have resulted in the launch of an Extended Collateral Term Repo (ECTR) Facility, which [...]
Euro area finance ministers have agreed to extend the European Financial Stability Facility’s (EFSF’s) capacity via “sovereign bond partial risk participation” and the creation of one or more “co-investment” funds. Under “partial risk protection”, the EFSF will provide a partial protection certificate to a newly issued bond of a Member State. The certificate could be [...]
Occupy London is claiming to have taken over an empty office block in Hackney, which it says belongs to Swiss investment bank UBS. The protest group describes the move as a “public repossession” of premises which have been empty for several years. Occupy London supporter, Jack Holburn, expanded: “Whilst over 9,000 families were kicked out [...]
UBS has updated investors on its strategy following the appointment of Sergio P Ermotti as group chief executive officer earlier this week. Going forward, the Swiss bank will centre on its wealth management business, which will focus on strengthening its position in the most attractive markets. Investment banking operations, which were recently hit by a [...]
The European Parliament has voted into law regulation that will curb short-selling and trading in credit default swaps (CDS). Both short-selling and CDS trading have been blamed for fuelling market volatility, with CDS trades in particular linked to the troubles of Greece. The new rules therefore virtually ban certain CDS trades as follows: 1. Naked [...]
UBS has appointed Sergio P Ermotti as group chief executive officer with immediate effect, following the departure of Oswald J Grübel in the wake of the $2.3 billion in losses accrued by alleged London-based rogue trader, Kweku Adobol. Mr Ermotti has held the position of group CEO on an interim basis since 24th September and [...]
Bank of England deputy governor, Paul Tucker, yesterday set out issues “essential” to the safety and soundness of clearing houses. Concerns over the systemic risk posed by clearing houses, or central counterparties (CCPs), have been around since the onset of the credit crisis and according to Mr Tucker, the sector has, over time, “coalesced into [...]
UBS posted operating profit before tax of CHF 980 million for the third quarter of 2011 (Q2: CHF 1,654), despite last month’s revelation that an alleged rogue trader had cost the bank CHF 1.8 billion. Group revenues came in at CHF 6.4 billion compared with CHF 7.2 billion in the previous three-month period. The bank’s [...]
The European Commission is proposing to revise the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) to make financial markets more efficient and transparent. In particular, it wants to improve the oversight of less regulated markets and address excessive price volatility in commodity derivatives markets. The main objectives of the revisions are: More robust and efficient market [...]
Goldman Sachs has reported a third-quarter net loss of $393 million. Net revenues at its investment banking business plummeted to $781 million, down 33% compared with a year earlier and 46% lower than in the second quarter of 2011. Investing and lending activities recorded negative net revenues of $2.48 billion in the third quarter, the [...]
The pool of new City jobs created in the third quarter of 2011 has shrunk by 17% compared with a year earlier. According to financial services recruitment firm, Astbury Marsden, only 12,750 new jobs appeared in the three months to the end of September, although the past few weeks have seen something of an improvement. [...]
UBS has accepted the resignations of Francois Gouws and Yassine Bouhara, co-heads of its investment bank’s global equities division. The departures follow the banks recent rogue trader incident, the two having been responsible for the effective management of the bank’s equities business. Messrs Gouws and Bouhara follow the example set by ex-UBS chief executive officer, [...]
