Financial Muse
-
NYSE-Börse: the deal terms
The boards of Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext have agreed to a merger, less than a week after confirming they were in advanced talks over a deal. Here are the key points of the deal.
-
Meet the new chief executive of LCH.Clearnet: Ian Axe
Ian Axe, a former managing director at Barclays Capital, has landed the top job at LCH.Clearnet, Europe’s largest independent clearing house, as competition mounts in the post-trade clearing market.
-
Disease, contagion and finance
Analytically-gifted maths and science graduates abound in banking, but they were unable to spot, let alone prevent the financial crisis. Amid the extensive political, public and regulatory post-mortem studies into what went wrong and how it could be stopped from happening again, calls are growing for a look into a different kind of science.
-
Horlick hopes celebrity chef is recipe for success
Pig trotters on toast. Hazlenut gnocchi with crisp-fried duck eggs. Roast grouse with blackberries. These are just some of the mouthwatering dishes that could be appearing on the menu of Nicola Horlick's new restaurant venture, under the guidance of celebrity chef Adam Byatt.
-
Mercer raises heat on climate change
As a sailor, Mercer chief investment officer Andrew Kirton has a healthy respect for the weather, and he reckons it is high time the rest of us did as well.
-
George Osborne's magic numbers
Considering it has just been tapped for another £800m in tax – following the UK Government’s announcement that it was increasing the bank levy from £1.7bn in its first year to £2.5bn – the City of London’s reaction was remarkably subdued.
The surprise breakfast time announcement by George Osborne should have had bankers spluttering over their cornflakes, but instead elicited only a few grumbles about the dangers of an unpredictable tax system driving the banking industry from these shores. But the anger seemed almost synthetic.
-
Wealthy go SKI-ing (Spending the Kid's Inheritance)
Wealthy parents in the UK are modelling themselves on Bill Gates by refusing to pass on the bulk of their wealth to their children. But unlike Gates, instead of giving it to charity, they are spending it on themselves.
Over 70% of wealthy parents are not prepared to make any sacrifice in their standard of living in order to provide their children with an inheritance, according to a new study commissioned by boutique wealth manager Heartwood Wealth. They defined 'wealthy' as middle class and upper middle class, although did not attach any figures in terms of net wealth or income.
-
No Millennium bug (yet) for love-struck LSE
Don't speak too soon, but the London Stock Exchange's much-anticipated migration of the main Sets market onto its new MillenniumIT platform on Valentines Day appears, at first sight…to be going well.
-
Heard On The Street: Bob Diamond's big day
Bob Diamond is under pressure.
On Tuesday, he will announce Barclays' results for the first time as chief executive. But the scrutiny will be intense, particularly after Credit Suisse Group last week reduced its target return on equity to 15% from 18%, blaming the new Basel III capital rules. Diamond's challenge is to persuade investors that the UK bank, which doesn't have the benefit of a highly profitable, low-capital-intensity private-banking business, can deliver similar returns.
-
Letter from Sierra Leone: Exploiting resources needs local support
Less than a decade after a brutal 11-year civil war, the image of Sierra Leone is not a good one. The film Blood Diamond is no advert for tourism. But my visit there recently revealed a country that appears politically stable, will host its third free election next year and appears to be brimming with highly educated former exiles who have returned to rebuild their country.
-
Life After the City: from finance to junk
Solicitor-turned-corporate-financier Jason Mohr left the City to indulge his entrepreneurial ambitions and now gets a big buzz from his junk clearance company:
“When I worked in the City, I always felt slightly out of place. I liked the salary, working with bright people, and the kudos, back then at least, of being in such an exclusive industry. But I very rarely got a buzz about what I did. If I’m honest, I also never really loved working for other people and that, more than anything else, was why I left to do my own thing.
-
Average pay at hedge fund Och-Ziff nears $900,000
Staff at Och-Ziff took home an average $893,000 in pay and bonuses last year, reinforcing the reputation of hedge funds as home to Wall Street's biggest pay cheques.
-
City digs deep for Square Mile Salute
At a fundraising feast for the armed forces last night, a roster of high-profile individuals, among them the Mayor of London Boris Johnson and the former chief of general staff Sir Michael Jackson, exhorted their City of London guests to spend their bonuses on a worthy cause.
-
More super-rich investors get US citizenship
Britain is entangled in a new debate over allowing rich people to “buy” citizenship. Its Home Office, according to the Financial Times, is about to make it easier for the wealthy to become citizens based on their investments.
-
If you could, you’d travel that way too
I’m writing this on an oversold Boeing 737 flight, sitting by an exit-row window with the middle-seat passenger’s elbow in my side. The extra legroom gives me space to actually use my computer; the 17-inch seat width just isn’t enough for three full-grown men, especially when the guy on the aisle needs a seat-belt extender.
-
Exchange mega-merger will result in battle of the brands
When two well-known names in any industry merge there is often a fierce debate about what to do with their respective brands. The proposed tie-up between NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse is likely to be no different, but while Deutsche Börse will own the majority share of the new group, it is NYSE's brand that carries far more weight.
-
How much did Wall Street bosses know about crash?
Chief executives at the 14 largest Wall Street firms were 30 times more likely to sell rather than buy their own shares in the run-up to the financial crisis, according to research by two American academics.
-
Kengeter digested: Banking culture has to change
Carsten Kengeter, the chief executive of investment banking at UBS, last night gave a light-hearted talk at the London School of Economics during which he touched on his own career in finance and discussed the challenges banks face in the post-crisis world.
-
FCIC report becomes unlikely bestseller
Amid a seeming unquenchable thirst for its analysis of just what went wrong with the financial system during the economic crisis, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has released recordings of some of the hundreds of interviews that it carried out to compile its bestselling report.
-
Chart of the day: Football's rich list
If only football was an indicator of economic strength, then the UK and Spain would be the world’s richest and mightiest nations, instead of fading colonial powers with a debt problem.
-
Markets suffer jitters on denied Saudi rumours
As if investors in the Middle East didn't have enough political uncertainty at the moment. The oil markets were hit with further jitters this morning on the back of an unsubstanitated rumour surrounding the health of the Saudi Arabian monarch.
-
Chart of the (transatlantic exchange merger Wednes)day
Poor old London Stock Exchange. It appeared to be set to dominate all the headlines yesterday with the news that it was to combine forces with the Toronto Stock Exchange. Shares initially soared as investors digested the combination of a minings-strong trading behemoth. But then the headlines were stolen by arch rivals Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext confirming that they were to merge. As this graph shows, LSE investors did not appear so enthusiastic as their counterparts at Deutsche Börse.
-
Headhunters expect RBS exits as Project Merlin bites
Recruiters are predicting high-profile departures at Royal Bank of Scotland following the UK Government’s announcement that, under the terms of Project Merlin, up-front cash bonuses should not exceed £2,000 at state-owned banks.
-
MBAs remain a passport to riches
The days when an MBA was regarded as a ticket to a better-paid job seem to be returning, with pay for business school graduates back above pre-recession levels, according to new research from the US.
-
Long term FX rates ‘barely matter’
For short term investors, exchange rates make a huge difference, but over the long-term hedging makes little sense, says new research. Perhaps long-term investors such as pension funds are worrying too much about currency risk.
-
The NYSE and Deutsche statement
NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse have confirmed reports that the two exchanges are in merger talks. Shares had been suspended following rumours that the two exchanges operators were in negotiations. The exchanges have just put out a press release. Here it is in full:
-
American wealthy give less to charity
The website Slate has published its annual list of the largest American charitable contributions and it does not make comforting reading for those hoping that the rich would dig deep in their pockets to help those less fortunate than themselves.
-
Blue is (still) the colour in the City
Money from the City of London accounted for around half of the total donations to the Conservative Party last year, according to a Dow Jones report [ http://on.wsj.com/gDasRM ] on figures from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
-
Exchange folk celebrate on the slopes
It’s shaping up to be a rather backslapping week for London in the exchange stakes. Today's tie-up between the London Stock Exchange – much desired by a string of merger suitors of the years – and Canada’s TMX comes as Londoners are still celebrating a strong showing in the annual ski competition between participants from exchanges and the financial markets.
-
Mifid: Views from the top
Last week the European Commission's eight-week consultation on the review of Mifid closed. Now the industry awaits the Commission’s next move. Financial News gathers views from a range of well-known City chiefs, trade groups, and policy executives, on this transformative piece of regulation.
Sidebar
Previous Blog Posts
