James Moore



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Full name: James Moore

Area of interest: Business, economic and financial affairs

Journals/Organisation: The Independent

Email: [mailto:j.moore@independent.co.uk j.moore@independent.co.uk]

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 * also contributes to Investment View



Articles: 2014

 * Sorry, guys - poorly paid, part-time jobs are nothing to boast about - Outlook: A good day for the Coalition’s economic team? Unemployment is officially below 2 million and the jobless rate of 6 per cent is at its lowest since the collapse of Lehman Brothers back in 2008. - 16th October
 * Lord Freud wanting the disabled to be paid below the minimum wage is a new low for the Tories - And there was me thinking that the party's attitude to the disabled couldn't get any worse - 16th October
 * Mark Carney and the man on the Clapham omnibus are in agreement - Outlook: Did HSBC somehow imagine that the leaked news that two of its directors were contemplating resigning over rules that could see them and their fellow board members jailed for not doing their jobs properly, could sway the Bank of England? - 14th October
 * Good riddance to bankers who can’t comply with reasonable requirements - Outlook: A matter of principle. At least, that’s how the impending resignations of John Trueman and Alan Thomson from HSBC’s UK bank are being cast - 8th October
 * Tinkering with the SFO is just what it doesn’t need - Outlook: Now would be the worst possible time for Jack Regan’s shooter to jam - 7th October
 * Wonga scandal: Politicians and regulators are ignoring the causes of this social cancer - How long do we have to wait before a body with a little more clout takes up the cudgels? - 3rd October
 * Maybe having some mothers on board would help retailer? - Outlook: “Mothercare” and “turnaround plan” go together like “baby” and “nappy”. The chain’s latest effort is going to cost shareholders £100m via a deeply discounted rights issue with the funds slated for debt reduction and a store closure programme - 25th September
 * Dear George, pay rises are the answer to reducing our deficit - Outlook: The latest public sector borrowing figures represent a body blow to the Government, one made all the more painful given that they came out on the day of Ed Miliband’s speech to the Labour Party conference - 24th September
 * Is the cycling bourgeoisie ready for a new republic? Halfords thinks so - Outlook: Launched in 2008, Cycle Republic was actually Halfords’ second standalone bike brand alongside BikeHut. - 24th September
 * If hedge funds fail to deliver they must expect consequences - Sadly, no one’s forcing the world’s legislators to follow the rules - 17th September
 * Takeover Panel may have to bare its teeth since playing nice is outmoded - Outlook: Companies pledging commitments may find themselves landed with supervisors to ensure they keep their promises - 16th September
 * Voluntary groups as risky customers? The banks really need to get a grip - Banks ought to have the wit to be able to differentiate between high risk and low-risk customers for a start - 10th September
 * Bank of England’s clawback idea is the sensible way to tame City - Outlook: With such a long tail on bonus money we may create senior bankers who look to the long-term health of their institutions - 9th September
 * You can bet Betfair’s investors are not happy - Outlook: Talk about getting egg all over your face - 3rd September
 * Just saying sorry – and meaning it – could save banks money and effort - Outlook: The Financial Ombudsman today reports that complaints are on the rise again - 2nd September
 * Funding for Lending flops, but firms still need help - Outlook When it comes to getting finance into the hands of small business, the Funding for Lending scheme has been a flop - 30th August
 * Standard Life’s conservative view wins friends south of the border - Outlook: “In making our comments, we were not seeking to make a political comment.” If he can make more disingenuous statements like that with a straight face, then a political career may be ahead for David Nish, the chief executive of Standard Life - 6th August
 * It’s a bit rich for HSBC to moan about being strangled by red tape ... - A hubris ringfence should be raised, and then electrified, without delay - 5th August
 * Andrew Higginson faces a tough time transforming Morrisons - Outlook: They’re playing musical chairs in supermarket boardrooms again, and all the seats are hot ones - 30th July
 * How Lloyds bit the hand that fed it - Outlook: Even so, its £105m fine amounts to little more than a rounding error to Lloyds - 29th July
 * The UK economy may be back on track, but ordinary people are still being left behind - Living standards are not rising in line with growth - 26th July
 * RBS has a lot to learn if it’s to regain customers’ trust - Outlook: Oh dear. Just days after its chief executive Ross McEwan had again talked about his ambition to turn Royal Bank of Scotland into a paragon of banking virtue, it has egg all over its face again - 23rd July
 * Every little helps, they say, and it didn’t take much to lift Tesco shares - Outlook: Mr Clarke pulled Tesco out of its disastrous American adventure and identified the problem with its antiseptic and unfriendly UK stores - 23rd July
 * Watchdog could get its teeth into more than payday lenders - Outlook: At last some sanity has been brought to the payday loans market - 16th July
 * MySale deal opens the easy route to the land of opportunity for Ashley - Outlook: The tactic of taking a sizeable minority stake in another business as a means of forcing the target to the table to talk business is one his Sports Direct has used before - 15th July
 * Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct buys 4.8% stake in Australian fashion discounter MySale - Outlook A fat finger, a tumbling share price, then a fat stake taken out by a company whose founder is apparently not unfond of of the pies they sell at halftime at his football club. - 15th July
 * Here's how to turn the tables on tax avoiders - The problem is that HMRC simply can't compete with the big accountancy firms - 11th July
 * Why Sainsbury’s shareholders shouldn’t cash in just yet - Outlook: Sainsbury’s shares are like those “buy one get one free” bargains supermarkets are so fond of when compared to the near 600p the Qataris came close(ish) to paying for the grocer in 2007 - 10th July
 * Are we rolling over for foreign predators? - Outlook: How appropriate that the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, appears before the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee to answer questions on foreign takeovers when there’s one in the offing - 9th July
 * Taylor Wimpey should be made to do more to earn the Help to Buy windfall - Outlook: Who is Help to Buy actually helping? You can add developers to the well-to-do families and London professionals that critics have identified as big beneficiaries of the taxpayer-underwritten mortgages accompanied by deposits of as little as 5 per cent of a home’s value - 8th July
 * It seems the big beasts of banking really are too big to jail after all - Outlook: US Attorneys certainly have a neat line in soundbites. "A Tour de Fraud," is how Preet Bharara described the conduct of BNP as he and his colleagues confirmed what we all knew - 2nd July
 * Ageing assets need improving, but at what cost to struggling households? - Outlook: If the widespread use of food banks is worrying you now, just imagine what will happen when those bills start to come in - 1st July
 * Apple seems to have found itself playing catch-up with the iPhone - Outlook: It's just about the time of year for Apple to start cranking up the hype machine. The iPhone 6, or should that be the iPhone 5X, or even the iPhone Air, is due to be launched in the autumn - 25th June
 * Osborne’s HS3 plan for a ‘London Mark Two’ would Balkanise the North - Outlook: HS3 still woefully lacking in ambition. What about Merseyside? Or Newcastle, sitting in splendid isolation in the North-east - 24th June
 * Will this one-trick pony give trusting investors a kick in the teeth? - Outlook: Is TSB a model bank? The sort of UK-only supporter of homebuyers, savers and small businesses we’d all like banks to become? - 10th June
 * Tesco’s needs to get a grip – before a ‘difficult result’ becomes a disaster - Outlook: “Well obviously it was a difficult result. But I’ve accelerated my new plan for the side. It will deliver results. And just look at the performance of our left midfielder. Pretty good I think you’ll agree.” - 5th June
 * We should be raising a glass to Vince Cable’s pub industry plans - Outlook: To listen to the trade body for pub companies, Vince Cable’s Department for Business, Innovations and Skills has just been responsible for an innovation that will have more than 50 British pubs calling last orders for the final time - 5th June
 * This mortgage market would have appalled even your grandparents - Outlook: Amid all the recent froth about the housing market it’s worth remembering that by historic standards mortgage activity is still relatively muted, and was so even before the recent measures taken by the Bank of England to deflate the apparent creation of a house price bubble - 3rd June
 * The mega-deal is back – and that may not be good news for Vodafone - Outlook: It was only a few months ago that Vodafone was the toast of the City after stuffing investors' pockets with billions of dollars from the sale of its shareholding in Verizon Wireless in the US - 21st May
 * It won’t be another giveaway float but Saga can’t afford to let down investors - Investment view: Saga’s forthcoming flotation has prompted a grey gold rush, with 700,000 of the company’s customers registering an interest in taking part in the listings - 20th May
 * AGMs to tackle worker disputes is smart move - Outlook: America's Teamsters will be out in force at today's National Express annual meeting, as part of a long-standing row over the alleged treatment of workers at the transport company's US school bus business - 14th May 2014
 * SFO inquiry into Barclays could turn into yet another costly disaster - 13th May
 * Dead end for Lord Myners' road map - Lord Myners has, in poker parlance, gone "all in" by daring the Co-op to take on his review and threatening it with a revolt by bankers if it doesn't cave in - 8th May
 * Smartphone punt shows there’s life in Tesco yet, but there are challenges ahead - Outlook - 7th May
 * BP could be scapegoat for US in Ukraine wrangle - Outlook: BP is another company potentially facing trouble from the US, eve - 1st May
 * Let’s think about OUR national interest as Pfizer guns for Astra - Outlook: It’s disturbing that the impact of a deal on the UK is barely being discussed in the corridors of power - 29th April
 * Frenetic activity won't fix the pharmaceutical industry's problems - Outlook: The pharmaceutical sector is creating more excitement in the world's financial centres than the opening of a warehouse full of free Viagra in a retirement community - 23rd April
 * These latest CPI numbers add up to very bad news for Labour - Outlook: Are we seeing the end of the cost-of-living crisis and with it one of Labour's best lines of attack against the Coalition Government? - 17th April
 * These latest CPI numbers add up to very bad news for Labour - Outlook: Are we seeing the end of the cost-of-living crisis and with it one of Labour's best lines of attack against the Coalition Government? - 16th April
 * Barnier’s EU crackdown on HFTs won’t take effect for years – if ever - Now Michael Lewis has written about high-frequency trading in Flash Boys it has become big news - 15th April
 * Banks behind schedule as the forex review looms - Outlook: It seems banks are still well behind schedule with their review into the disastrous sale of interest rate swap products to small businesses - 9th April
 * ‘Mergers of equals’ are rarely satisfactory and never truly equal - Outlook: Holcim and Lafarge deal conforms to many of the breed’s worst features - 8th April
 * Are we sure that the banks really learnt their lesson last time round? - Outlook: What if? That is the question the City's big banks and other institutions are supposed to be taking seriously in the wake of the financial crisis - 3rd April
 * Insurance industry should consider its own misdeeds as it bays for blood - Outlook: The insurance industry has scented its regulator’s blood and is positively drooling as a result - 1st April
 * Plenty of talk but still not enough action by the banks - Outlook: Does the British Bankers Association inhabit a parallel universe? It certainly appears that way when you look at its lending numbers - 26th March
 * There’ll be more than jaws dropping at the Co-op Bank before too long - Outlook - 25th March
 * Budget 2014: Osborne's been lucky, but there were a couple of devious moves made by the Chancellor - The fact is that the Chancellor doesn’t need everyone to feel satisfied, he just needs enough of his people to vote - 20th March
 * Sainsbury's magician is leaving the stage just as clouds are darkening - Outlook: Justin King's abdication party hasn't quite turned into a wake, but there will be a sour note in whichever of Sainsbury's marque champagne brands they serve at his do - 19th March
 * Hold the front page - RBS is after some good publicity - Outlook - 18th March
 * Here's what they should be called: a whinge of bankers - Outlook Shall we think of some collective nouns for bankers? A "rip-off"? A "greed"? How about a "mis-selling"? No, got it, a "bonus" - 5th March
 * It’s time for shareholders to hold companies to account once again - Outlook: March heralds the beginning of annual meeting season in earnest and ought to provide some indication as to whether this year’s will resemble the limp affair of 2013 or something more meaningful, as in 2012 - 4th March
 * We must help small firms if we are to weather the mortgage storm - Outlook: The Financial Conduct Authority is worried, and with very good reason - 26th February
 * Vodafone investors should start counting their reasons to be cheerful - Outlook: People with shares in Vodafone have good cause to be cheerful. They’re about to get a huge payout from the group’s sale of its part of its US joint venture Verizon Wireless - 25th February
 * Essar Energy's investors never had a chance with a big brother calling all the shots - Outlook: To look at Essar Energy's trading update, you could almost believe this was nothing out of the ordinary. Move along, nothing to see here, business as usual - 19th February
 * Chapter 11 is not a bankruptcy panacea, but it does have its merits - Outlook: Would reform of Britain's bankruptcy laws help to correct the power imbalance that exists between banks and the businesses they lend to? - 18th February
 * Flood Re can mop up this water problem but what about the future? - Outlook Bring on Flood Re. The most recent estimate of deluge-related damages from the Association of British Insurers stands at £426m - 12th February
 * Long term, bank chiefs will still get their payouts, despite the gestures - Outlook: Barclays’ chief executive Antony Jenkins last week blamed “legacy issues” for passing on his bonus this year, but had he waited a few days he wouldn’t have had to resort to pointing to the sins of the past - 11th February
 * RBS may want to move, but England may not want it - Outlook: Business leaders would probably be best off steering clear of the Scottish independence referendum (I'm looking at you, Bob Dudley from BP) - 6th February
 * If Paul Flowers passed the Co-op's test, we must put the test in the spotlight - Outlook: So now we know how the Co-op came to appoint the hopelessly unsuitable Paul Flowers to chair its banking business: apparently his psychometric test scores made him a slam-dunk choice - 29th January
 * Only a smart fight can help Ford workers - To win in the “global race” that David Cameron and his chums are always banging on about, we are often told that a flexible Labour market is essential - 28th January
 * We know Godfrey Bloom's an idiot, but what about those laughing at his Richard III joke? - What bothered me is that so many of the assembled thought abuse towards disabled people was funny - 28th January
 * We may pay a high cost for this credit-driven boom - Outlook: With the International Monetary Fund having upgraded its forecasts for Britain's economy, the Coalition Government has another arrow to fire at Labour as it revels in the cachet of presiding over the fastest-growing economy in Europe - 22nd January
 * This time around, Nintendo’s ability to innovate may not be enough - Outlook - 21st January
 * Look out – now the heat is on, the regulators are stripping for action - Outlook: The international investigation into banks' foreign exchange trading is fast becoming the hottest ticket in town - 14th January
 * Farewell Fat Cat Wednesday, will you come along any sooner next year? - How can it be right that an executive can earn a seven figure bonus after a matter of months? - 9th January
 * Yet again a regulator has ticked boxes and avoided taking tough decisions - Outlook: John Mann, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw, got to the nub of the issue at an astonishing hearing of the Treasury Select Committee yesterday. He pointed out that while much has been made of how banking culture has gone badly wrong, the same could equally be said of the culture at Britain's financial regulators - 8th January
 * Banking reform will not be complete until individuals are punished - Outlook: The natural reaction to the Financial Conduct Authority’s announcement of an investigation into the Co-operative Bank is to say “what took you so long”? - 7th January



Articles: 2013

 * Bob Diamond's name may be mud with the public, but it shines in the City - Outlook: With the exception of an interview with the New York Times wunderkind Andrew Sorkin and the odd trip out to the basketball at the Barclays Center (he sits on the board) Bob Diamond has mostly kept his head down in the Big Apple for the past year and a half - 18th December
 * Reformers should look at £38bn bung from taxpayer to the banks - Outlook: That the Banking Reform Bill is a worthwhile effort is largely thanks to the efforts of Andrew Tyrie and his colleagues on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards - 17th December
 * Watchdog's more like a tortoise with this slow review of banks' auditing - Outlook: Lost in the heat of yet another day of shame for the banking industry was an important point made by Andrew Tyrie, the chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards - 13th December
 * The City should celebrate if the Pru really has seen the light on quality - Outlook: Prudential has given the City something to smile about with a pledge to double cash generation at its rapidly growing Asian business to roughly £1bn by 2017 - 11th December
 * Back-to-the-future banking on the cards at HSBC – or is that Midland? - Outlook: The bank has reportedly sounded out investors about the partial flotation of its UK bank - 10th December
 * How much longer can this crumbling house of horrors stay in one piece? - Outlook: Yes, Royal Bank of Scotland is facing a scandal (again). It's an IT snafu this time (another) - 4th December
 * The market has greeted allegations about RBS with relative equanimity - Outlook: Is Derek Sach going to get a share of the £500m Royal Bank of Scotland is preparing to pay out in bonuses this year? It's an interesting question - 3rd December
 * Young and old can take heart – at least it’s not as bad as in Mexico - Outlook: Only way of being certain of a retirement in relative comfort is to join the public sector - 27th November
 * For disabled travellers, the loss of tube staff gives reason to worry - It doesn't matter where they are, but having someone to help is vital - 22nd November
 * Saviour is needed urgently as Co-op Bank faces being stripped of its name - Outlook The Co-operative badly needs the City to cough up another Libor scandal to divert attention from the escalating woes of its bank before they derail the latter's rescue plan - 21st November
 * Charity bosses should not be pocketing six figure sums - They appear to have become infected with malaise that infects the City; to get bright, talented people to do important jobs they need to be paid ridiculous salaries - 21st November
 * A veil fell from the Co-op's face and customers may not like what they see - Outlook: For a long time people accepted that Co-op hadn't always been the most dynamic of institutions, on account of its much-vaunted ethics. Its management may not have been out of the top drawer, but at least their hearts were in the right place. Now that is being exposed as a sham - 20th November
 * Forget the drugs, the real scandal is how opaque building societies can be - Outlook: I don’t expect we’ll see any of the chairmen of Britain’s six biggest building societies on video, scoring crystal meth from shifty looking blokes in cars, as Paul Flowers, the former chairman of Co-op Bank, was filmed doing. As skeletons in closets go, this one is king sized - 19th November
 * It is the bystanders who helped lift a car off a cyclist at Spitalfields - and who saved me - that represent the real Britain - In recent years, it's been said the British have been replaced by a depressing narrative - 14th November
 * Sir Philip Hampton aspires to apply the common touch, but facts don't lie - Outlook: It seems that Sir Philip Hampton wants us to think of him as a voice of sanity in the City - 13th November
 * Now the Government’s outsourcing responsibility for contractor debacle  - Outlook: The National Audit Office’s two reports into the contracting-out of state services aren’t exactly going to shake the sector’s big players to their cores - 12th November
 * SuperGroup's solution for business rates is likely to fall on deaf ears, too - Outlook: SuperGroup is expanding superfast but it would like to grow even faster, and that should be good for us because it would create jobs and stimulate the economy - 8th November
 * Payday lenders who prey on the young should face the law, not the FCA - Outlook: The payday lending industry was at pains to promote its newly minted code of practice before MPs yesterday. It claims it is reforming itself - 6th November
 * Co-op’s ethical investors shouldn’t be too quick to disparage hedge-funders - The bank only exists right now because of the loyalty displayed by its 4.5 million customers - 5th November
 * People like Katie Hopkins choose targets carefully - those judged as socially acceptable to demean - Her tweet mocking Tanni Grey-Thompson's disability says a lot about us, in that she has also been allowed to become a commentator in the mainstream media - 5th November
 * Grudging respect for the abrasive Mr Hohn, Royal Mail’s biggest shareholder - Outlook - 23rd October
 * Nuclear power may not look cheap now, but there are other benefits - Outlook - 22nd October
 * How Burberry's Angela Ahrendts will find herself facing the crunch over at Apple - Outlook: "Do you still think I'm pretty?" is the lament of Apple's virtual PA app Siri in Microsoft's latest US ad, after she bemoans all the features the iPad lacks by comparison to Microsoft's Surface. As an attack ad, it's entertaining but still completely misses the point - 16th October
 * Pull out of the EU? We’d just be trading one set of problems for another - 15th October
 * It's not just David Weir. A chronic shortage of social housing is making life hell for thousands of people with disabilities - Press involvement has missed the big story in this scandal - 11th October
 * A more stable banking sector does not mean our finances are safe again - Outlook: Where's the next financial crisis going to come from? Up until now, regulators have been focused on preventing a repeat of the last one - 9th October
 * Robin Hood in reverse – poor are set to suffer as Royal Mail floats - Outlook: Critics of the planned listing reckon valuation could be £1.2bn light - 8th October
 * Rein in Google? You won't find EU watchdogs keying that into a search engine - Outlook: Here's an interesting thought experiment. Ask yourself which would be more economically destructive: the US Government shutting down, or Google shutting down - 2nd October
 * Why Tories need to mind the Watford Gap as they ignore north-south divide - Outlook: Get set for a turbulent few days as America’s politicians prove that they can be every bit as childish as some of ours - 1st October
 * Ed Miliband's making a political mistake with his business rate promise - Outlook: Ed Miliband's pledge to roll back rises in business rates by reversing the Government's planned cut in corporation tax stands current orthodoxy on its head - 25th September
 * Willie Walsh is right, but it’s about immigration so don’t expect action soon - Outlook: Venturing into the political arena on any issue is a big risk for businessmen, let alone choosing one of the most contentious of the day, which is what Willie Walsh has done on the subject of immigration and border security - 24th September
 * Telling the truth has its price as Tesco dumps house brokers - Outlook: The way Tesco tells it, the decision to dump long-time brokers JP Morgan Cazenove and Nomura was simply good housekeeping - 19th September
 * Lloyds sale could stand alone without these silly accounting tricks - Outlook: On the face of it, yesterday's sale of Lloyds shares was an unalloyed success, perhaps beginning the final chapter of the financial crisis - 18th September
 * The Co-op’s treatment of it bondholders is nothing short of shabby - Outlook: The Co-op has a new chief executive and a new team but it hasn’t changed the way it acts - 17th September
 * Will the FCA investigate the Co-op? It must make its position clear - Outlook: It is often noted that the Co-op Bank is the first to get into difficulties without having to call on the taxpayer for cash -11th September
 * Deloitte is brought to book at last – but what about the Phoenix Four? - Outlook: Eight years after MG Rover’s ignominious collapse, someone is finally paying a penalty for its demise - 9th September
 * A tale of two Co-op accounts raises some stark discrepancies - Outlook: So who do you believe? Neville Richardson, the former chief executive of Co-operative Banking Group, who previously ran Britannia Building Society, tagged as the source of its problems following their merger - 5th September
 * Stand by for some fun as Microsoft strives to get its house in order with Nokia deal - Outlook: A cynic might see the real prize for Microsoft with its $7.2bn (£4.6bn) takeover of Nokia's mobile business as the return of Stephen Elop, who could provide a tidy solution to the question of who should replace Steve Ballmer as CEO - 4th September
 * Berkeley’s looking solid now – but watch out, the roof could fall in - Outlook: Is it not worth seeing if Vittorio Colao can create something  with what remains? - 3rd September
 * If you really want RBS to start lending to firms, it should be state owned - Outlook: The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards has, it seems, smelled a rat. It wanted an independent review carried out on whether it might not be a good idea to split RBS into a good bank and a bad bank - 28th August
 * This is business brilliance from Team Cyrus - There’s nothing like a bunch of older commentators telling you that something is a thoroughly bad thing to get her target market to part with their cash - 28th August
 * We'd better not rush headlong into a party as Carney goes for growth - Outlook: Mark Carney seems determined to make a noise, and despite an economic backdrop which appears to give him and his colleagues on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee only limited room for manoeuvre, he's surely done it - 8th August
 * Why Flint needs to take the hint and put a block on bloated bank salaries - Outlook: HSBC still thinks it needs to pay out stupendous sums to keep its top staff - 6th August
 * Do watchdogs have the stomach to take on the likes of Deloitte? - Outlook: Accountancy’s Big Four have the financial clout and the wherewithal to fight their regulator - 30th July
 * Why RBS is right to bank on an insider as it seeks its new man at the top - Outlook: An internal candidate like McEwan knows where all the bodies are buried - 24th July
 * Why we need a regulator with clout to hold the big accountants to account - Has the Competition Commission caved in to one of the more cynical lobbying campaigns conducted in the City of London (and let’s face it the bar is not very high on this front)? - 23rd July
 * Goldman Sachs is back in the good books, but let’s not forget the past - Outlook: The bankers are well and truly back on Wall Street - 17th July 2013
 * Multinationals like GSK now need China more than China needs them - Outlook: Clive Cowdery’s think-tank says a third of Britain is unaffordable to low earners - 16th July
 * Co-op bondholders who lost chunks of capital will not be easily palmed off - Outlook: The Co-op Bank's retail bondholders are the big losers in its forced recapitalisation - 10th July
 * Radical reforms are just what we wanted but don't bank on them sticking - Outlook: Reckless bankers face jail! It sounds tough, doesn't it? Just the sort of radical reform we need after the grievous damage their industry did to this country - 9th July
 * If audit reform is so bad, why can't bosses be bothered to explain? - Outlook: British companies are apparently in a lather about plans by the Competition Commission to shake up the way in which their books are audited - 3rd July
 * Irish are not laughing at bankers' crude jokes - Outlook Yesterday provided yet more evidence of the depths to which the banking industry sank during the lead-up to and during the crisis - 26th June
 * Women can succeed on trading floors – but toxic culture has to change, too - Outlook: Could an infusion of women on to trading floors be the catalyst to reform the toxic culture that led to the Libor interest rate scandal, not to mention a string of others down the years? - 20th June
 * Why George Osborne must beware of the banking backlash - Outlook: The blue touch paper has been lit and it might pay for George Osborne to consider a flak jacket when he delivers his Mansion House speech - 19th June
 * Ethical banking is the only way to save sick man of the mutual sector - Outlook: Has the death knell been sounded for ethical banking? It's understandable why people are concerned about this as the Co-op Bank prepares to join the stock market because of the need to plug a black hole in its books - 18th June
 * Good news on jobs, but the trouble is we're turning into a low-wage economy - Outlook: So is the jobs glass half full or half empty? Both interpretations on yesterday's unemployment data were on display during a rowdy Prime Minister's questions. In reality, the Government probably has more to be happy about, although it's very marginal - 13th June
 * Sony makes early gains in war with Microsoft - Outlook: After a spring when most institutional shareholders appeared to be sleeping, a remuneration report has at last been defeated - 12th June
 * Pouring cold water on suitor's advances is right course for Severn Trent - Outlook: Consumer the loser as investors hold whip hand; Astra's buy may not be the remedy it seeks - 11th June
 * Tesco needs to turn up the heat as marketplace gets a whole lot chillier - Outlook: Just as it looked as if Tesco was turning the corner it's back into reverse gear again. Sales are declining and the brushfires that were burning across the empire seem to have flared up again - 6th June
 * George Osborne probably won't even have to play a shot to keep out RBS googly - Outlook: Is the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards planning to bowl another googly at George Osborne? - 5th June
 * Only a year on, and the shareholder rebellion looks like history already -Outlook: What a difference 12 months can make. Last year's shareholder spring was, in reality, nothing like as revolutionary as was claimed at the time - 4th June
 * The next big scandals that could hit the banks - With public anger currently focused on US multinationals and their tax affairs, Britain's battered banking industry has been enjoying an overdue breather. But there are still storm clouds brewing - 30th May
 * Regulators and politicians not ready to be courageous and set interest rate cap - Outlook; There is a simple solution to the problem of payday lenders – one that has been highlighted again by Citizens Advice, whose admirable service is being swamped by the industry's victims: an interest rate cap, such as one that already exists in the Irish Republic - 29th May
 * Don't pressure parents on co-sleeping - it's the only option for some people - It’s one of those secrets that’s whispered between parents behind hands; something you never, ever, tell a health professional - 25th May
 * The IMF is backing a plan B for Britain - Outlook: Talking of the IMF, its main reason for being in town yesterday was to give its view on the current state of the UK's economy - 23rd May
 * Mayer risks failure as she tries to buy her way out of a jam with Tumblr purchase - Outlook: Is Marissa Mayer riding for a fall? Or just a bit of a Tumbl(r)? It all depends on whether she can successfully generate a bit more than the pitiful $13m (£8.6m) of revenue that Tumblr, the blogging website she is going to use $1.1bn of Yahoo’s money to buy, has so far manage - 21st May
 * Betfair takeover deal fell at the last hurdle, but the sport is not over yet - Outlook: After a big song and dance about how Betfair could be a winner without CVC's anabolic steroids, the gambling firm started playing footsie with its stalker over the weekend - 15th May
 * Fixing infrastructure is crucial if UK wants to be a runner in the global race - It's tough to win a low-grade selling handicap if the horse you're riding is lame, let alone a top-flight international group one; a "global race" if you like - 14th May
 * Sainsbury's has its work cut out if it's going to make banking taste better - Outlook: Bank well for less. Is that going to be the slogan for the new Sainsbury's Bank? New Sainsbury's Bank, you say. But hasn't the show been on the road for 16 years? In fact, wasn't Sainsbury's the first supermarket to dip its toes in these waters? - 9th May
 * The deification has started already - Sir Alex Ferguson is the patron saint of football's moneymen - It was the moneymen behind Sir Alex who constructed Man U's global brand. But they couldn't have done it without his successes - 9th May
 * HSBC may be coining it in now, but it still has key questions to answer - Outlook: Remember when the banks were getting pilloried for making too much money? They've been so busy losing it recently that it seems like a very long time ago - 8th May
 * How to deal with a problem like Ukip? Take them head-on - Calling Farage's party racist allows it to play the victim card. So attack policies instead - 3rd May
 * Black horse is running into form but there are more hard races ahead - Outlook: It seems like the black horse is feeling a little frisky again. Profits up, bad debts down, no increase in provisions for payment protection insurance compo, suggesting that Lloyds may finally be past the worst of that debacle - 1st May
 * Balfour's reputation gets a battering after shake-up problems - Outlook: Is there more trouble brewing for the economy? When companies like Balfour Beatty and Greggs start issuing profit warnings you might think so - 30th April
 * George Osborne dodges this bullet but trouble looms on the southern horizon - Outlook The sighs of relief from the Treasury could be heard echoing throughout Westminster, Whitehall, and beyond. No triple dip! GDP is growing again! - 26th April
 * Not much to celebrate – even if we avoid ignominy of triple-dip recession - Outlook: It's the end of the fiscal year and time to tot up exactly what the Government has to show, in terms of cutting Britain's budget deficit, for another year of austerity, public sector job cuts, pay freezes and non-existent economic growth - 24th April
 * Phantom bid for Betfair is a blast from the past that's not worth backing - Outlook: Has one of the companies in CVC Capital Partners' portfolio suddenly developed a workable time machine? It looks that way. Consider how the private equity firm and its pals are conducting their attempt to gobble up Betfair - 23rd April
 * Thatcher's Funeral: Please can this be over now? - I’ve no objection to a respectful funeral, but over the last few days, while we’ve all been wallowing in the past, the problems of the present haven’t gone away - 17th April
 * Goldman once more leads the pack, but what's really going on is anyone's guess - That great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells of money? Well let's put it this way, there's nothing wrong with its nose - 17th April
 * Betfair looks like a winner, but a degree of patience is required from its backers - Outlook: If you bought shares in Betfair over the last few months, congratulations you’ve backed a winner! - 16th April
 * Fit For Work pilot: the scheme makes sense, but let's hope it isn't another Atos - I’m not sure I trust this Government to run the scheme in a sensible and sensitive manner given the way some reforms have been conducted so far - 12th April
 * Were auditors carried away by the crazy optimism of bankers? - Outlook: The accountancy firms responsible for the audits of this country's failed banks have yet to be hit by any serious aftershocks from the earthquake of the financial crisis. That might be changing, and not before time, because the issue represents the dog that hasn't barked - 11th April
 * Why our new watchdogs should put the boot into RBS for its IT blunder - Outlook: The bovver boys have finally donned their hobnailed boots and headed off down to Royal Bank of Scotland's headquarters to create a ruckus in the wake of last year's IT snafu that left some customers locked out of their accounts for a month or more - 10th April
 * Online betting makes Labour's attack on high street bookies look small - Outlook: What could be better than some bookie-bashing to cheer us all up after a 66-1 outsider that virtually nobody backed won the Grand National? - 9th April
 * James Crosby's failings were every bit as egregious as Fred Goodwin's. He just knew when to get out - The commission has done us a service by shining a harsh spotlight on HBOS - 5th April
 * Salz report won't deliver value for money unless Barclays really changes - The report is actually rather vague. There’s lots of lofty talk about culture and values - 4th April
 * Only difference? We won't bail out a football club -No, they are not the biggest players in the market. But when a small businessman can’t get a loan for a transit van while a loss-making football club can access finance to spend on the Premier League’s wage excess, something is seriously wrong - 27th March
 * Still on the wrong lines over our railways, but no doubt we'll grin and bear it - Outlook: DfT has threatened to make Homer Simpson look like a fully paid-up member of Mensa - 27th March
 * Royal London looks set to prove a strong mutual is in the interests of all - Outlook: Royal London has quietly become a force almost without anyone noticing it. The mutual life insurer has gobbled up the Co-op's life insurance and fund management business, the latest in a series of acquisitions - 21st March
 * M&S might benefit from time out of the spotlight – a Qatari holiday, perhaps - Outlook: M&S hasn't been this exciting since a pregnant Myleene Klass emerged from the waves in a white bikini, which then flew off the shelves faster than yesterday's denials - 19th March
 * Have lessons been learnt? Regulators have failed again and again and again - Outlook: Something up with Libor, you say? Sorry guv, not my problem, speak to the British Bankers' Association - 6th March
 * Precious little humility from those at the top despite banks' misdeeds - Outlook: What would it take for a banking executive to not be awarded a bonus, as opposed to voluntarily forgoing a payout, as only Antony Jenkins at Barclays did this year? - 5th March
 * There's nothing pretty about the pay squeeze, but it can't go on for ever - Outlook: Another year of wage freezes? It's coming for a lot of people working in manufacturing, at least according to the industry's trade body, the Engineering Employers' Federation (EEF) - 27th February
 * It's not just the weather that's making homebuyers batten down the hatches - Outlook: The market is in a very bad place because confidence remains desperately low, even with the BoE spraying cheap money around and at least two banks seeming to be quite keen to lend as a result - 26th February
 * BAE's buyback hardly diverts attention from its huge pensions black hole - Outlook: BAE Systems has been a byword for bad news in recent years but long-suffering investors were finally given something to smile about - 22nd February
 * Heathrow's bid to charge the airlines more is just increasing turbulence - Outlook: The air industry has never been one to favour polite negotiation behind closed doors when there is the possibility of a public bust-up with lots of airtime for the big personalities that are drawn to the business like moths to a candle - 19th February
 * Daniels' analogies are a little misleading: PPI is not like a trip to Tesco - Outlook: One of the reasons banks were so keen to sell payment protection insurance (PPI) policies alongside personal loans is that selling personal loans hasn't been a very profitable business - 15th February
 * New conservative Barclays plans to lull investors back to sleep - Outlook: It's a cliché that the City doesn't like surprises, so there probably won't be too many when Antony Jenkins unveils his new strategy for Barclays today - 12th February
 * Knights jousting for Barclays show that it is still living in the past - Outlook: Antony Jenkins was the belle of the ball after declaring he was "shredding" the legacy bequeathed to the bank by former chief executive Bob Diamond at a hearing of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards - 6th February
 * If banks play by the rules they need not be afraid of an electric ring-fence - 4th February
 * The fat cats who scratch each other's backs - James Moore examines flaws in the executive remuneration system and suggests some remedies - 2nd February
 * US Justice Department is targeting RBS over Libor to fight off its critics - Outlook: If you were wondering why Royal Bank of Scotland's settlement with regulators over its role in the Libor fixing scandal was taking so long to finalise, a little light has been shed on the matter - 30th January
 * As the smart money quits sterling, George learns you can't trust markets - Outlook: The pound is taking a pounding, and it's going to get worse. Dealers have been describing the traffic in sterling as moving in one direction – out. The only real surprise is that it has taken this long - 29th January
 * GDP figures: with the British economy heading for triple-dip, a little fiscal stimulus would go a long way. Instead Cameron has given us uncertainty - Now more than ever, businesses need reassurance. Where might it come from? - 25th January
 * Bumi's big mess reinforces the case for corporate governance of trackers - Outlook: Bumi, the London-listed natural resources investor whose misadventures in Indonesian coal-mining have made it a poster child for everything bad about the sector, was at it again today - 23rd January
 * Barclays bosses shouldn't shoot the messenger when it comes to bad news - Outlook - 22nd January
 * Amazon's smile gets wider as it chews its way through the high street - Outlook: Is it just me, or did the Amazon smile logo get just a little wider as HMV became the latest taxpaying British retailer to give up the ghost? - 16th January
 * Bankers and bosses in line for bonuses – whether they deserve them or not - 15th January
 * Maybe the competition authorities should look at the magic of cinema - Outlook: In the 1930s, the last time the economy saw such a sustained period of awfulness, there was at least the cinema for a bit of escapism - 9th January
 * No wonder the banks are cheering the latest rules on their asset buffers - Outlook: US banks actually look in far better shape than some of their European rivals right now, and that's a relief - 8th January
 * There's plenty of money to borrow, as long as your record is squeaky clean - Outlook: At last it seems that the Bank of England's decision to throw lorryloads of cheap money at the banks is having an effect - 4th January



Articles: 2012

 * Osborne must respect get-tough plans for banks or be seen as a poodle - It is rather a sign of the times that the deal is nothing to do with the core business, the stock exchange itself - 21st December
 * Diamond got a rough deal as Barclays took first blow in punishment for Libor - Was there just a hint of schadenfreude in the air at Barclays' HQ yesterday morning? After months of promises, someone else finally got it in the neck for attempting to fix Libor (and Euribor) interest rates. And how - 20th December
 * An impeccable addition to Pru's impeccable board. Pimm's all round - Outlook: Prudential has been busily collecting boardroom baubles since the spectacular mishandling of its attempted takeover of Asian insurer AIA - 14th December
 * Now Barclays has its man, will Hector decide Rich is for the high jump? - Outlook: Barclays has got its man. Hector Sants, the former head of the FSA, became one of the City's hottest commodities when he quit the regulation game - 13th December
 * And you thought the OBR's forecasts were meant to be right? - Outlook: Remember when the Office for Budget Responsibility was set up? There was a big song and dance about how it would provide clean and independent fiscal forecasts that would help to prevent governments from fiddling the figures - 12th December
 * The ghost of Lehman's past still haunting operations of non-US banks - Outlook: The successor will have a lot to live up to. Not least because the outlook is looking less tasty - 11th December
 * Ignore the doom-mongers, the City lights are getting brighter all the time - There are still people who would have you believe that those employed in London's financial centre are falling over each other to get on the last plane out of town - 5th December
 * The sites that decide the price based on your internet history - What if eBay increased the price of an item if it knew you could afford it? - 5th December
 * Sir James' timing in jumping ship from HBOS was on the genius level - Whatever is said about the way he ran his bank his timing can’t be faulted - 4th December
 * Ukip might not be a racist party, but they do appear to want to turn Britain into North Korea. Do you? - Look closely at their immigration policy, you find an instinctive aversion to foreign talent. If adopted, it would make us economically and culturally poorer - 1st December
 * Banks behaving badly may lead to outsourcing the ombudsman - Outlook: Problem with your credit card? Fear not: Your bank's helpful staff in Mumbai will sort it, so long as your issue is on the right menu - 29th November
 * A happy new year? Third helping of recession is starting to look more likely - Outlook: Remember when everyone was twitching about a double dip recession? Those seem like halcyon days now that there's a new phrase creeping its way into the popular lexicon: The triple dip - 28th November
 * New boy Carney's hands will be tied when it comes to actually changing things - Outlook: Mr Carney will be in charge of implementing a structure that has already been laid out for him - 27th November
 * Yet another pension idea cannot sweeten the sour taste of retirement poverty - Outlook: To give the impression that they're doing something resembling work, public relations and marketing types like to indulge in something they refer to as "brainstorming" - 23rd November
 * It's right that Osborne is being taken to task over ring-fencing at banks - Outlook: If George Osborne was hoping that the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards would concentrate its energies on telling off bankers for being bad, he's been given a rude awakening - 22nd November
 * Retention packages are a huge mistake – and it's pensioners who suffer - Outlook: Yesterday was a rather grim one in the City but there was at least one small outbreak of sanity - 21st November
 * Even going nuclear will not deter powerful banks from ring-fence gaming - Outlook: When the new rules come in they will be obeyed... for a while - 20th November
 * Qataris are right to stand back from voting for these Xstrata retention deals - Outlook: Thanks to the Qataris, Glencore boss Ivan Glasenberg's protracted quest to win control of Xstrata is now all but over - 16th November
 * Energy 'price-fix' is hard to prove and act upon - Outlook: There has been a certain amount of hot air vented over revelations about potential fixing of energy prices, revealed by a whistleblower, who worked for a price reporting agency, in a blaze of publicity- 14th November
 * Sorry Sir John, but the banks could run rings around your ring fence - Outlook: How do you decide if a bank has been trying to ‘game’ the system? Who makes the ruling - 13th November
 * M&S will have to smarten up or its loyal customers may take the Lidl option - Outlook: There is a "glass half full" case for Marks & Spencer - 7th November
 * The trouble with Romney recipe for growth is his friends get biggest slice - Outlook: The US is close to fulfilling its energy requirements, further boosting growth - 6th November
 * At least for the short term, gender quotas might be the best bet - Outlook: A majority of the EC’s nine female members reportedly oppose them - 24th October
 * We'd be hypocrites to attack foreigners for tax avoidance - Outlook: We offer succour to a string of islands that act as tax avoidance facilitators - 23rd October
 * Bumi affair reflects appallingly on London, so give the box tickers more bite - Outlook: One consequence of Nat Rothschild's abrupt resignation from the board of Bumi is that it finally complies with a key provision of the Combined Code on Corporate Governance - 17th October
 * Branson looking set for a double delight on the railways and at the bank - Outlook: It's consumers who are going to feel the migraine on the West Coast Main Line - 16th October
 * Sainsbury's chief is talking sense, but Osborne chooses to turn a deaf ear - Outlook: Justin King knows a thing or two about employee share ownership. Some 40,000 of his colleagues have shares in Sainsbury's, and 11,000 of them picked up payouts totalling £26.5m last year through the supermarket group's share save scheme - 10th October
 * This way of finding a new Bank Governor is a charade to avoid true transparency - Would Jim O’Neill have been a serious contender under traditional methods of appointment? - 9th October
 * Red faces at Bear Stearns are just more proof of how rotten banks were - Outlook: Bear Stearns has provided the latest example of why every business course on the planet should now start out with a lecture on why you should think very carefully before you click "send" after composing an email - 3rd October
 * There's a ray of light in this sorry saga of corporate excess at Glencore and Xstrata - Outlook: Non-executive directors, who are hired to act in shareholders' rather than executives' interests, may take their jobs more seriously - 2nd October
 * New watchdog must tell banks to toe the line on Libor – or else - Outlook: Now let the squealing start. If there's one thing former colleagues of Martin Wheatley are united in praising, it is his forensic approach. That will be seen in his Government-commissioned report into Libor fixing today - 28th September
 * An odd problem for Lloyd's: too much cash undeterred by a run of disasters - Outlook: Lloyd's of London was once the City's problem child. It's now the class prefect. That was driven home by yesterday's results - 28th September
 * Reshaped RBS draws rave reviews – but is far from 'recovered' - Outlook: Optimism and Royal Bank of Scotland have been mutually exclusive terms for so long that yesterday's statements from chief executive Stephen Hester had the feeling of coming from a parallel universe where his unlamented predecessor Fred Goodwin had remained an accountant - 26th September
 * Cable's 'robust' view won't matter if state meddling scuppers BAE mega-merger - Vince Cable's statement makes it look like the merger is a done deal from the UK point of view - 25th September
 * despite what you say, the in-laws just don't like this marriage - Outlook: The stock response by BAE Systems' chairman, Dick Olver, to just about any of the increasing number of awkward questions which have been raised about his ambitions to merge the company with EADS is that it's a great deal, trust us - 21st September
 * One-trick ponies of the mining world face a new and less profitable future - Outlook: "Companies like Lonmin have already cut capital expenditure and rising wages may force them to look also at closing higher-cost shafts… Unless we see a sustained recovery of platinum prices more jobs will be lost." - 20th September
 * Optimism tempting as inflation picture looks rosier, but let's not get carried away - Outlook: Inflation has slipped again: Hooray! Crank up the presses, let's start printing money once more - 19th September
 * If BAE and EADS gets a 'non', why not a true Brit takeover by Rolls-Royce? - Outlook: The start of a new week has brought no respite for BAE Systems' chief executive, Ian King, with a fresh set of laser-guided advanced precision kills weaponsTM fired at his proposed merger with the Franco-German EADS - 18th September
 * Either way, we begin the autumn with half a glass - Economic View: All in all, the job figures are consistent with a slowly-growing economy rather than one in recession - 13th September
 * Walker the talker has plenty to say, but in the end it will be actions which count - Outlook: It was Walker the talker at yesterday's hearing of the hastily convened Parliamentary inquiry into banking. MPs famously enjoy the sound of their own voices but Sir David Walker, the incoming chairman of Barclays, could teach them a thing or two - 13th September
 * Job vacancy for Bank Governor. Most of you need not apply - Outlook: Apparently finding someone to succeed Sir Mervyn King as Governor of the Bank of England is proving a tad difficult - 12th September
 * Funds have the power to stop malpractice - For managers to simply sell the shares of companies that misbehave is a copout - 11th September
 * Broadcasters must seize on this surge in interest - Our writer, who broke limbs in a cycling accident over a year ago, says an amazing thing happened to him over the past fortnight - 10th September
 * Memo to the Tory party - people need food on the table, not a conservatory - Outlook: In observing the folk from the Tory party at either work or play, it's often easy to assume they are being satirical - 7th September
 * City's version of Judge Dredd will need to wield a very big stick - Outlook: The best part of a decade in Hong Kong appears to have transformed Martin Wheatley from the acceptable face of the LSE (he was once deputy chief executive) into the City's version of Judge Dredd - 6th September
 * Moody's wakes up to EU's woes but it has little clout these days - Outlook: Act quick, sell off your bonds! Moody's has put the European Union's AAA credit rating on negative outlook - 5th September
 * RBS is still a mess, but the fellow to blame is in the clear - City advocates can't seem to get their heads around why this makes people cross - 4th September
 * The banker, the go-between, the sheikh and an £11.5bn deal - If it failed to get the money it would have to go cap-in-hand to the Government - 30th August
 * Corporate bunglers could be put off by Buckles' barracking - Outlook: If you paid a decorator up front to paint your house before putting it on the market you'd probably be rather cross if, when the time came for the work to be done, you were told that only half the rooms could be completed because he'd not hired enough people for the job - 29th August
 * At News Corp, only the foot soldiers pay the price of failure - Outlook: Superficially, the latest numbers from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation show an empire in deep disarray - 10th August
 * After US attack on City, maybe our regulators should target Wall Street - Outlook: Oh dear. It seems America's financial cops have swooped on another British bank, although you won't see many Team GB tops at Standard Chartered's HQ if its repeated threats to hop it for sunnier, less regulated, climes are anything to go by - 8th August
 * Property market gloom returns, and that may be a headache for Lloyds - Oh dear. It's time to worry about house prices again with another set of nasty numbers from Halifax - 7th August
 * We need a shake-up on white-collar crime after the latest debacle - Outlook: Oh dear. It seems the Serious Fraud Office has mucked it up again. Surely the better acronym for what Reuters yesterday described as "the UK's top fraud busting agency" without a hint of irony would be the SFU (I won't spell out the Anglo-Saxon) - 1st August
 * HSBC is so sorry about the drug money – honest - Outlook: Who said sorry seemed to be the hardest word? Banks seem to be falling over each other to make ever more effusive expressions of regret, and yesterday it was the turn of HSBC - 31st July
 * Turner's candour may shut Bank door. Maybe he is better suited to Barclays - Lord Turner may also be right in his analysis that free banking has to end - 25th July
 * Kay's ideas on target but it will take teeth if we are serious about fixing the City - Outlook: Vince Cable will be formulating a response that could easily be frustrated - 24th July
 * Was Lord Green too busy writing books to see the sub-plot going on at HSBC? - Outlook: It is sometimes said that everyone has a good book in them. Most people, though, struggle to find the time, not to mention the motivation - 20th July
 * We must be deluded to think that the Bank of England has too much power - Outlook: So it's official. The Governor of the Bank of England does indeed have more power than God, at least when it comes to London's financial centre. Even though he's not (officially) a regulator and didn't know there was anything wrong with Libor for ages - 18th July
 * Danish distraction is why G4S is still in a right old mess - Outlook: This can't be allowed to continue. It is time for regulators to get a handle on it - 17th July
 * Bankers will put the block on sensible regulations rather than take a pay cut - Outlook: Believe it or not there are still those who think there's too much regulation in the City - 13th July
 * Turner's message didn't get through to Barclays – or the FSA - Outlook: One of the disturbing things about the Libor interest rate fixing scandal is how frequently apparently intelligent people in functions of vital importance to this country's economy have been capable of misinterpreting what other similarly intelligent people have said to them - 11th July
 * The odds could be against Betfair as Cypriots plan to ban a losing bet - Outlook: The SFO has sometimes given the impression that it lacks the stomach to take this on - 10th July
 * A bank tale stranger than fiction, but we need the truth now - This affair has briefly eclipsed the eurozone crisis, but the latter hasn’t gone away - 4th July
 * City suits laugh at the law while hoodies get their collars felt - Outlook: The regulators simply aren't feared. They are looked upon as 'stupid' - 3rd July
 * While directors of Farepak had an early Christmas, it was ruined for savers - Outlook: Christmas has come six months early for the directors in charge when Farepak sank, and now it looks like the party could be paid for by the taxpayer - 22nd June
 * Microsoft is Armed and possibly even dangerous to Apple - Outlook: So which chip are you going to pick? - 20th June
 * Why knackered CWW is worth £1bn to Vodafone - Outlook: CWW's assets immediately turn Vodafone into the biggest fixed line provider after BT - 19th June
 * Cost of tackling pensions crisis will only be more painful if we keep ignoring it - Outlook: We've become so used to hearing about a pensions timebomb that it's really very easy to respond with a shrug of the shoulders and a quick "la la la, heard it all before" - 13th June
 * Tesco's playing the blame game is not cricket when they can hit rivals for six - Outlook: A revived corps of rivals are eager to take back business Tesco once took away from them - 12th June
 * The golfer-turned-financial adviser in a drive to clean up his industry's act - This is not a self-interest campaign. It is about facing the issues the industry has created - 6th June
 * Shareholder spring? It was just a cynical attempt to keep Vince Cable at bay - Outlook: Companies should put some of the money they give to their executives back where it belongs... in the pockets of shareholders - 29th May
 * HomeServe has no room for boasting when it has so many problems to sort out - Outlook: If you ever needed an example of why the insurance industry gets it so wrong so often HomeServe's chief executive Richard Harpin provided it yesterday - 23rd May
 * London's regulators are as scary as a Disney movie with the lights turned on - Outlook: US regulators have been more alive to the situation. Even the FBI has got in on the act - 22nd May
 * Treasury lucked out with Northern Rock and now might have to repeat the fluke - Outlook: With the economy hitting the buffers the Treasury could use some good news. Today no less than the National Audit Office appears to offer some with the publication of its report into the Treasury's management of Northern Rock. Appears to - 18th May
 * Fickle friendships - the real value of Facebook is in users who refuse to pay - Outlook: It is unlikely that many of the investors falling over each other to buy into Facebook's flotation are long-term users - 16th May
 * As Dimon finds new ways to say sorry, the blame is being laid further down - The book publisher Quercus is among the 156 companies attracted to the Plus market - 15th May
 * We must not miss this chance to rein in the banks - JP Morgan's bankers were supposed to be the industry's golden boys - 12th May
 * Man who holds the remuneration purse strings must be next for the axe at Aviva - Outlook: Last week, Andrew Moss was giving up his pay rise. This week it's his job - 9th May
 * PPI is still reining in the black horse - Outlook: The numbers from Lloyds Banking Group might not have looked terribly clever yesterday, but there were reasons for the black horse to be feeling a little friskier than of late - 2nd May
 * Aviva might want to demonstrate this tremendous value shareholders pay for - This sets a terrible example to the firms in which Aviva’s fund management arm invests - 1st May
 * Primark has the formula M&S lost - Outlook: Here's an example of what you get if you run a retailer that doesn't seem to require that its chief executives devote lots of time to getting photographed with Twiggy or Dannii Minogue and instead gives customers what they want, when they want it - 25th April
 * Corporate rules flouted by the cosy club at the top of SABMiller - After 15 years Cyril Ramaphosa is almost becoming part of SABMiller’s furniture - 24th April
 * Barclays bosses' offer to give up half their bonuses doesn't amount to much - Outlook: Oh dear. Barclays' PR offensive with its fractious corps of investors appears not to have been going too well - 20th April
 * Tesco certainly has issues, but critics must be mad to say it's in a real crisis - Outlook: The supermarket that ate Britain is still suffering from indigestion - 19th April
 * Bolland's got good reason to frown after woolly thinking sees M&S mess up badly - Outlook: Marc Bolland has certainly got into the swing of things as M&S boss - 18th April
 * Barclays must take more heed of the taxpayers on the Clapham omnibus - Outlook: The Sex Pistols' lyrics could scarcely be more relevant today, and not just on these shores - 17th April
 * Expensive and out of touch - it's child's play to see what's wrong with Mothercare - Put the name "Mothercare" into the search box at Mumsnet, a favoured online hangout for much of the retailer's target market, and it is very easy to see that this is a company with deep-rooted problem - 13th April
 * A good reason to hire consultants - you can blame them if things go wrong - Giving the headhunter control is considered "best practice", and with good reason: if the process goes wrong, there is someone there to blame other than the executive - 12th April
 * It's probably good that Thomas Cook didn't go for an emergency landing - Outlook: Here are some figures that ought to scare you a little, if you happen to have taken out a package holiday with Thomas Cook - 11th April
 * If Dimon stopped whingeing and took less money then he'd really be helping out - Outlook: Is the collective noun for bankers a whinge of? It certainly looks that way - 6th April
 * Expect the words 'pension' and 'black hole' to stay linked for some time yet - Outlook: Is the word "pension" inextricably linked to bad news? - 5th April
 * Murdoch finally jumps – but not far enough away from BSkyB - Outlook; James Murdoch's King Canute act has finally come to an end. The word was yesterday being put out that the now former chairman of BSkyB was not pushed out. The decision to step down was his alone - 4th April
 * Standard Life's good at feathering its nest but should stop throwing stones - If we could just make our report a bit more like yours it might make life easier for myself - 3rd April
 * Royal Mail may be sealing its demise with rises in prices - Outlook: Talk about indecent haste. Ofcom had barely issued its press release giving Royal Mail the green light to stamp all over its customers before the deed was done - 28th March
 * Coutts in the dock... but once again the taxpayer will pay price for City folly - Outlook: For Coutts, the right sort of person was just about anyone with a big enough sack of cash - 27th March
 * Expect frightened bankers' behaviour to get worse as their job options dwindle - Outlook: The next few weeks promise to be fraught ones in the human resources departments of the City's investment banks - 21st March
 * The case of George the magician and disappearing rabbits at the Royal Mail - Outlook: Even Dennis the Menace might baulk at pulling off a trick as mendacious as this - 20th March
 * RBS finds itself on the same side as the directors who led it to disaster - Game's shops are cold, antiseptic and unfriendly. They are not places people want to go - 13th March
 * Why the Fonz's thumbs-up for'reverse mortgages' is not so cool - It was the gratuitous insults that made corporate America shun Rush Limbaugh - 10th March
 * New boss Corcoran is facing long odds to turn Betfair into a real winner - Outlook: Welcome to the toughest job in gambling, Breon Corcoran. That might seem like a rather strange thing to say given yesterday's sprightly trading statement from Betfair, where Mr Corcoran will soon take over as chief executive - 7th March
 * Ocado's streets ahead on its delivery but here's why the investors aren't buying - Outlook: How long will investors tolerate the fact that the love is not being shared with them? - 6th March
 * Does addiction to bonuses make the banks a sell? - Investment View: Standard Chartered is not immune from a favourite pastime of bankers - moaning - or questionable bonuses - 2nd March
 * The man from the Pru is playing a dangerous game by making threats - Prudential has broached the nuclear option of moving to Hong Kong - 28th February
 * Recruiters look good long-term, but now it's best to bide your time - Investment View: Longterm, I would be a buyer of the sector. Firms have internationalised their businesses and so have good prospects - 24th February
 * This is Osborne's chance to clamp down on stupidity in the public sector - Outlook: Did George Osborne just get a little bit of breathing room? Yesterday's public sector borrowing figures contained some welcome news for the Chancellor - 22nd February
 * Lloyds' timing is handy with these clawbacks but why must it stop there? - Outlook: PPI is small potatoes when you consider the biggest hit executives landed shareholders with - 21st February
 * Investment View: Sky has potential to rebound, but ITV may struggle - Virgin is getting better... and is beginning to present a genuine competitive threat after years of problems - 17th February
 * Should we really care what Paris Hilton thinks about our party? - Outlook: The fact that the UK has so far escaped any hint of a credit downgrade has long been cited by the Coalition to support its preferred combination of spending cuts and tax rises to deal with the budget deficit - 15th February
 * What's in this deal for Voders? Perhaps the taxman could explain over lunch at the Ivy - Outlook: If the mythical King Midas ever needed a cure for his affliction he might find it by joining the board of Cable & Wireless Worldwide - 14th February
 * Party-poopers are at the door of this deal but there's more work to be done yet - Will the marriage of Xstrata and Glencore ever be consummated? Not if Standard Life and Schroders get their way - 8th February
 * Big business just doesn't understand it has a problem over bosses' pay - Outlook: Stephen Hester should get a bonus when the taxpayer gets a return on its investment - 7th February
 * An open letter to the Minister for road safety - Other motorists can hurt me when I'm in a car. And when I'm on a bike, they can kill me - 3rd February
 * New Apple boss Browett is in the big league now – but he has to watch his step - On the face of it, Apple retail and Dixons are in the same business. In reality they aren't even on the same planet - 1st February
 * Hester faces his tormentors alone as RBS top brass retreat to their bunkers - Outlook: Sir Philip Hampton has been doing a marvellous impersonation of the invisible man of British banking - 31st January
 * No big payout now, but a golden chance for Cairn chief to display his charity - Outlook: It couldn't have been timed better. Just a day after Vince Cable rushed forward his plans for a crackdown on executive pay, Cairn Energy bowed to pressure from shareholders and withdrew a £2.5m bung plus a £1m donation it had been planning to lavish on its chairman, Sir Bill Gammell, and his favourite charities - 25th January
 * Hester deserves his seven-figure bonus for plugging huge hole in sinking RBS - If Stephen Hester gets cross enough he might pull a trigger of his own and walk - 24th January
 * Dear Sir Mervyn, Goldman Sachs will increase revenues paid out to its staff - Outlook: Sir Mervyn King is becoming quite the radical. The Bank of England Governor used a hearing at the Treasury Select Committee yesterday to fire yet another broadside at the banks and their addiction to six- and seven-figure bonuses - 18th January
 * RBS has its critics, but the bank is absolutely right not to prop up Peacocks - When you shout about dressing people for £3 you surely ought to find a ready market - 17th January
 * Food saves Bolland's bacon as M&S counts the cost of a Christmas flop - Outlook: If Marks & Spencer's Christmas figures are anything to go by, the pixie dust Marc Bolland sprinkled on Morrisons to make it fly has been in short supply - 11th January
 * Novelty could soon wear off for gadgets as HMV tries to change its tune - Outlook: Dr Dre has found a lucrative, alternative revenue stream... 'Dr Dre Beats' headphones - 10th January
 * Metal exchange will not be able to resist the pot of gold - Outlook: The London Metal Exchange is the City's belle of the ball, with just about anyone with any interest in exchanges falling over each other to offer gold-plated dowries - 7th January
 * Row over currency trading wife could help chip away Swiss banking secrecy - Outlook: Philipp Hildebrand is apparently a very good swimmer. Perhaps that's why he feels he can push on against what looks like an overwhelming tide flowing against him - 6th January



Articles: 2011

 * The high street of the future: huge chains and a few boutique players - There has been much excitement and bluster about the early figures emerging from planet retail - 30th December
 * Essar Energy's power cut shows why we need to keep tabs on those at the top - Tis the season to lose your chairman. So it seems anyway - 24th December
 * Walsh knows his plans for BMI won't be grounded even if he's in the wrong - Outlook: You've got to hand it to Willie Walsh. He's got a real talent for talking twaddle with an absolutely straight face - 23rd December
 * Essar Energy's power cut shows why we need to keep tabs on those at the top - Outlook: Tis the season to lose your chairman. So it seems anyway - 22nd December
 * the taxman £2.76? You'd better meet him at The Ivy to chew it over'' - Outlook: Dear Taxpayer, We notice that your account is still in arrears and that you owe the sum of £2.76 - 21st December
 * A megabank can still hit the rocks and it will be far from orderly if it happens - Outlook: The trouble with Lehman was it was too big to fail, with tendrils that spread so much poison - 20th December
 * FSA has learnt a lesson, but will it really make a difference? - What comes next is a nasty fight over the idea that bank directors should be subject to "strict liability" - 13th December
 * Here we go again... mea culpa will be part tragedy, part farce - It's like handing over the World Cup final to the bloke who referees pub football - 12th December
 * Lacklustre Bunds sale must be a wake-up call for Germany and the rest of the eurozone - Outlook: There has been much (over) excited comment about the eurozone debt crisis in recent weeks, but yesterday came news that could tempt even some of the more phlegmatic analysts to reach for Prozac - 24th November
 * The cuts are causing me agony - The trouble with people like our esteemed Chancellor and his Chief Secretary to the Treasury is that they’re very clever people. Or at least they’re surrounded by people who tell them they’re clever - 10th November
 * Is it too tough at the top? The leaders who failed the stress test - Growing numbers of powerful bosses are giving up their jobs, blaming pressure and exhaustion. What's going on? - 3rd November
 * Enough already. It's time to shake up the system used to set executive pay awards - Outlook: One group seemingly immune to the impact of inflation, unemployment, economic stagnation and all the other woes afflicting this country is the men (it's usually men) who sit around the boardroom tables of Britain's biggest public companies - 28th October
 * Amazon chief needs to kick his addiction to tablets and concentrate on what he already has - Outlook: Drug habits are always costly, and Mr Bezos's has already cost him more than $4.5bn (£2.8bn) in terms of the fall in the value of his Amazon shareholding - 27th October
 * A true turning point for BP fortunes or just another clean-up job to soothe the City? - Outlook: So Bob Dudley, BP's American chief executive, thinks the business has reached "a definite turning point". Is he right? - 26th October
 * When investors see Britain's banks as a good bet it must be really bad in Europe - Outlook: Given the amount of taxpayers' money that has been pumped into the British banking system it seems rather odd that all of a sudden the investment community is starting to see it as, if not exactly a safe bet, then at least comfortingly defensive. But that is what's happening - 25th October
 * Gold rush may be over as steep price dive sees the metal lose its lustre - Outlook: Since hitting a high on 6 September, the gold price is now off by 20 per cent. The silver price has slumped nearly 50 per cent - 27th September
 * is an unreliable witness – but a very convincing one'' - If contemplating his jail term and the suicide of his son have loosened his tongue, there may well be sleepless nights at some very grand institutions - 17th February
 * traders' can still spin the wheel without scrutiny'' - It was billed as making Britain the most transparent financial jurisdiction in the world, beyond even Hong Kong which demands that pay packets of the top five employees are detailed as well as those of directors - 10th February
 * shares have been under the cosh – Sir John Vickers is the reason'' - Those who thought bank break-up talk was quite unthinkable when the Commission was announced have been forced to revise their expectations - 1st February
 * Mr Osborne trying to tip us off a cliff with his deficit shock therapy?'' - Outlook: George Osborne was talking tough yesterday, with a nod to the heroine (Mrs Thatcher) whose name he dare not mention in public in case it upsets the voters. "We will not be blown off course by the weather," he boldly proclaimed, as the economy nosedived into a tailspin - 26th January
 * options would help people quit loans habit'' - Those who defend companies such as Provident Financial make two points: that their clients are broadly satisfied with their service (Provident puts the figure at 95 per cent), and that the alternatives are dire - 24th January
 * are on a winning streak, but it might not last much longer'' - Today's gambler can access a bewildering array of betting opportunities at the click of a mouse from a vast selection of online bookies, each touting better odds and more exciting promotions than the last. Maximising one's returns with the aid of price comparison sites is child's play. And yet the popularity of the betting shop endures - 21st January



Articles: 2010

 * failure's the same on the trains, the buses and the planes'' - Outlook: Another day another report of transport misery brought about by the snow. And, amid a rising tide of criticism British Airways and BAA, the airports operator, are indulging in the time honoured tactic of blaming each other - 23rd December
 * the banks took revenge on the politician once known as St Vince'' - Outlook: Should I be watching my back if I were a banking executive? - 18th December
 * self-styled 'world's local bank' takes a nasty hit'' - HSBC is an institution that jealously guards its corporate reputation. That reputation took a nasty hit yesterday - 7th December
 * Kong has shown the world how to call the banks' bluff'' - Tough on bankers and tough on the causes of bankers. That was the rhetoric in the run-up to the election. Given Labour's supine response to the excess that led to the financial crisis and the worst recession for a generation, it proved a vote -winner. Now reality bites - 26th November
 * watchdog must look again at the mortgage market before it's muzzled'' - Outlook: It's obviously quiet at the Treasury right now with not much going on to trouble ministers and mandarins. That's why it's such an ideal time to shake up Britain's system of financial regulation (again) - 24th November
 * looks like it's catching a very nasty cold from the Spanish flu'' - Outlook: Have the wheels fallen off Banco Santander? This is the bank, remember, that incredibly brushed off the credit crunch as if it were an elephant having a minor problem with an irritating mosquito - 29th October
 * this a ray of light in the appalling mess of the British pension system?'' - Outlook: Auto-enrolment into company pension schemes is here. It is a pension reform idea with a dab more credibility than the carefully leaked, headline-grabbing figure of £140 for the basic state offering - 28th October
 * the CBI wants a union crackdown, firefighters may provoke one'' - Outlook: You may not have heard of AssetCo, a small, but growing British company that specialises in fighting fires - 27th October
 * we shouldn't move on: UBS is the latest bank to let former execs off the hook'' - Outlook: Jérôme Kerviel must be choking on his croissants this morning. While he's facing a lengthy jail term for his rogue trading at SocGen, the boys who nearly bust UBS, once the pride of Switzerland's financial services industry, are getting off scot-free - 15th October
 * forward Jerome Kerviel, court jester of casino capitalism'' - Outlook: Jérôme Kerviel seems to have become a sort of white-collar Raoul Moat - 6th October
 * soon to the stock market: a rush of cheap as chips flotations'' - Outlook: Time for a revival of the IPO market? - 3rd September
 * a care, Mr Osborne the economy's still very much on the critical list'' - Outlook: There's a curious feeling of the phoney war about the Government's austerity drive - 2nd September
 * takeover does not reflect well on institutional wheeler-dealers who want it'' - Outlook: So goodbye Tomkins. The metal-basher has become the latest British corporate name to succumb to an overseas takeover bid at a price that at least one prominent shareholder believes is too cheap by half - 1st September
 * no excuse for 70 companies to report interims at the last minute'' - Outlook: Just in case you missed it, yesterday was super Thursday in the City of London, not that there's really anything really super about it - 27th August
 * worthy attempt by the FSA to lead the way on banking reform'' - Outlook: The more we learn about the banking crisis, the more crazy what was going on in the months leading up to it appears to be - 26th August
 * campaigners are right about Vedanta but battle is not yet won'' - Outlook: So score one for the good guys? Vedanta – or perhaps "the world's most hated company" – suffered a reverse yesterday after its much-criticised plans to mine bauxite on sacred tribal land in the province of Orissa in eastern India were shot down by the country's environment ministry - 25th August
 * might not look that way but housebuilders could yet be stock market stars'' - Outlook: Ursine investors might be missing a trick. The shares of nearly every housebuilder trade at sharp discounts to their net asset values at the moment - 24th August
 * needed for this mutual funding crisis'' - For the past few years, any building society facing hard times has had a readily available solution – call on a larger rival, usually Nationwide - 12th July
 * should pay more for the support that they are still receiving'' - Outlook: Are Europe's banks coming off the critical list? There were vocal sighs of relief all round yesterday as the eurozone's finance houses borrowed much less from the European Central Bank than most analysts had been expecting - 1st July
 * top ranking shows that public image means nothing to bankers'' - Outlook; It seems the notion of "brand contamination" doesn't apply to the world of investment banking. Despite being vilified by all-comers for its conduct during the credit crunch – and facing fraud charges from the US Securities & Exchange Commission – Goldman Sachs remains Wall Street's most wanted - 25th June
 * blow-up offers lessons that Facebook must pay heed to'' - Outlook: So bye-bye Bebo. If ever you needed confirmation that AOL has the reverse of the Midas touch, it's this deal - 18th June
 * this case it's not the bankers that the OFT should have in its sights'' - Outlook: Apologies for indulging in a football related metaphor (it's not as if we'll be starved of them over the next month) but it appears that the Office of Fair Trading is shooting at an open goal with its launch of an investigation into the way investment banks underwrite share issues (in other words, the fees they charge) - 11th June
 * funds, deficits and a bevy of financial snake oil salesmen'' - Some pension risk solutions are being flogged by snake oil salesmen and trustees taken in by them will be left counting the cost - 25th May
 * watchdogs must now land some bigger fish'' - Simon Eagle operated at the fag end of the City, and a repeat of his scam is unlikely today - 21st May
 * funds and private equity are partly to blame for a bad, bad law'' - Mr Osborne has probably realised that going in to bat for hedge funds and private equity managers would be politically suicidal - 19th May
 * must not resort to macho regulation'' - Outlook: One of the issues with the Alternative Investment Fund Managers directive is that it tramples over territory which should be owned by national financial regulators - 19th May
 * tears shed across the Atlantic for the bank that gave others a bad name'' - It hardly seems credible that, less than three years ago, Goldman Sachs at the height of its powers won the sought-after title of "Bank of the Year" at the annual IFR awards in London - 28th April
 * right on predatory takeovers'' - Outlook: When news of a bid breaks, there tends to be precious little talk about whether it's a good or a bad idea - 23rd March
 * signs off with quite the flourish'' - Outlook: If Mark Bolland can do half as well at M&S as he has done at Morrisons, he might even be worth the egregious sum of money the retailer had to cough up to get him to sign on the bottom line - 12th March
 * politicians' solution: sit back and hope'' - Analysis: Here's a frightening figure. Every time longevity increases by a year, it costs BT's final-salary pension fund £1.3bn a year - 12th March
 * pension funds hoping for a miracle'' - Outlook: One of the curiosities of the financial crisis was that it actually made final-salary pension schemes look good. Thanks to various economic quirks, they showed a funding surplus of £43bn in December 2008 - 6th March
 * takes Pru into the corporate champions league'' - Analysis: It's a mark of the shift in world economic power to the east that this time Asia is the venue for Prudential's attempt to join the corporate champions league - 2nd March
 * displays symptoms of Sensitive Banker Syndrome'' - It's a condition that is spreading like the plague in the steel and glass temples of London's high priests of finance - 26th February
 * gives up bonus but where's UKFI?'' - Outlook: UKFI was given a brief to behave like a City institution, but politicians appear incapable of keeping their noses out - 23rd February
 * glittering career forever tarnished by a failure to act'' - The word emanating from the FSA's docklands Lubyanka about Hector Sants' departure - 10th Februaryannouncement yesterday was that it was a personal decision dictated by his personal timetable
 * the taxman plays hardball we're all in trouble'' - The taxman's 'pay now' demand is enough to tip a business over the edge - 8th February
 * the US has muscle to make banks behave'' - So plucky little Britain stands alone as the only country to set out concrete proposals to crack down on the appalling greed shown by bankers - 22nd January
 * came hunting in the only country that would sell – Britain'' - Kraft has been grappling with a problem. Its growth has been at best tepid and (as a result) the company's share price has done nothing very much - 20th January
 * world expects the US to do its duty'' - In confronting a natural disaster, Barack Obama has avoided the mistakes of his predecessor – so far. But he has to deliver - 17th January
 * banks and Barack's supertax'' - So the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has written a letter to the Chancellor with a complaint that the Government's policy on financial services is "ill-judged, will weaken our financial sector and send out the wrong messages about London's global role" - 15th January



Articles: 2009

 * need new approach for new year'' - Outlook: Sack as many people as you can while loudly bitching about your shareholders, competitors, government and regulators – the strategy adopted by Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group for paying back nearly 30 million unwilling individual tax-paying investors whose government has so far made available £74bn just to keep these banks afloat - 31st December
 * big impact from a small cut's removal'' - Outlook: Take a financial hit you really can't afford by following suit or give up yet more market share to the giants - 30th December
 * lesson for banks in Cadbury'' - Outlook: It looks like the bankers in Cadbury's corner are set to make some healthy success fees - 15th December
 * version of the three wise monkeys is fooling nobody'' - Alistair Darling is playing a dangerous game. Just how dangerous a game was made clear yesterday in the way investors in bonds issued by his Government reacted to his pre-Budget report - 11th December
 * boys the winners with Ofwat?'' - Outlook: Northumbrian Water's response to Ofwat's final decision on how much it can squeeze out of its customers over the next five years was a really quite outstanding piece of corporate verbal diarrhoea which said absolutely nothing - 27th November
 * happily ever after for JP and Caz?'' - Outlook It's been the longest of corporate courtships. The terribly traditional Cazenove has been cohabiting with JP Morgan in a joint venture for years, but only yesterday tied the knot - 20th November
 * task for Bolland to spark Marks'' - A changing of the guard at the top of the corporate tree, with two tarnished companies that once arguably had claims to represent the best of Britain appointing two proven turnaround men in the hope that their spit and polish will restore their shine - 19th November
 * tackle bank secrecy – everywhere'' - The spotlight that is now (belatedly) shining down on UBS is showing up some very ugly things - 18th November
 * contract crackdown is just hot air'' - The FSA's oncern is the way in which people are paid and what they are paid for - 17th November
 * enthusiasm is rewarded'' - There is a lesson for those who complain that the growth of supermarkets is squeezing high-street competition - 17th November
 * worst is over'' - Just as it's possible to talk your way into a recession, you can also talk your way out of a recovery - 12th November
 * ratings agencies can still bite hard'' - In the world of ratings agencies there is a very definite hierarchy. Standard & Poor's sits at the top of the tree, a branch or two above Moody's. Fitch occupies third place and, as a result of this, it has often proved rather more willing to say rather more interesting things than the others - 11th November
 * can't allow Kraft to win'' - If you let a predator take over a company in your portfolio at beneath the market price, others will try the same tactic - 10th November
 * needs to prove worthy of our money'' - So the horse trading begins again. Just a day after the Government pumped a truly obscene amount of taxpayer's cash into two zombie banks, the motor manufacturers are at it with General Motors wanting some financial candy of its own as the price for protecting thousands of British jobs - 5th November
 * head the City wins, tails we lose as RBS has wings clipped'' - So the bonus boys have at last had their wings clipped. Well at least at Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland - 4th November
 * this valuable prize should go to a newcomer'' - If anyone two years ago had described Northern Rock as the "belle of the ball" they would have been laughed off stage. But after all the junk has been carved out of it, with the help of a £27bn dowry from the taxpayer, that is what it will be - 29th October
 * need more than a reports code'' - The financial sector has been allowed to operate behind a veil of obscurity for too long - 27th October
 * inactivity to hyperactivity... the regulator's folly'' - There's been a flurry of activity from Britain's financial watchdog in the last few months. Hardly a day goes by without the chairman, Lord Turner, appearing in the media with an eye-catching new initiative designed to clean up the banking industry here, or a wagging finger aimed at its bonus culture there - 20th October
 * family silver – more of a car boot sale'' - It looks like great idea in principle – raise funds to plug the gaping hole in Britain's public finances by selling off state assets - 12th October
 * hit by corporate cowboy sting'' - The cowboy builder has become something of a British archetype, providing a steady stream of easy fodder for television consumer shows when they're short of ideas. And when the crooks are exposed, they give the bigger boys the chance to suck air into their teeth and counsel people only to use proper accredited companies that might not be cheap, but do things properly - 23rd September
 * Turner's optimism not yet justified'' - If nothing else, Lord Turner has a knack for publicity and self-promotion that few regulators have shown before - 23rd September
 * not much sweet about Kraft'' - Kraft needs Cadbury a lot more than Cadbury's needs Kraft - 8th September
 * data makes ugly reading'' - While much sound and fury continues to be vented over the issue of bankers' pay, the Financial Services Authority yesterday produced a timely reminder that it is not the only issue facing the sector - 4th September
 * needs to be heard over repayments'' - The Federation of Small Businesses is continually banging on about the time taken to pay invoices submitted by its members. So it might be tempting to dismiss its latest missive – complaining that it is now taking up to four months – as more of the same. It would also be wrong - 3rd September
 * need to cool it as anger grows'' - Not wanting to be outdone by Lord "Tax 'Em" Turner, Gordon Brown has now decided he has to join in with the bonus bashing too - 2nd September
 * in the slow lane'' - France and Germany are out of recession. Good news, says Mandy, glib as ever. The business secretary, deputy PM and God's representative on earth, says different economies will show different patterns of behaviour - 14th August
 * takes the Pru back up to the top'' - A ray of light at the end of what have been two bad weeks in financial services - 14th August
 * plan is not as good as it appears'' - Hector Sants could scarcely have garnered more publicity for himself this week had he dressed up in a Fathers for Justice-style Spider-Man suit and stood at the top of Canary Wharf with a banner and megaphone, blaring: "Look at me, look at me" - 13th August
 * 'sort of' recovery can easily go off'' - It's that dreaded "double dip" again, except that, according to Mervyn King, we are not going to experience one – probably - 13th August
 * of the Phoenix Four is a diversion'' - Nearly a decade ago, John Towers was hailed as a hero as he entered stage left with a bold promise to save Rover as a mass-market UK car maker, something BMW, which knows a thing or two about the motor industry, had conspicuously failed to do - 12th August
 * a look at tax havens closer to home'' - And so Liechtenstein has surrendered. Following on from the tax information exchange deal with the US comes a similar one with the UK - 12th August



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