Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Middle East
Israel freezes Barclays bank account linked to Hamas fundraising
Reuters
October 11, 20233:06 PM GMT+1Updated 19 hours ago
LONDON, Oct 11 (Reuters) - A bank account at British bank Barclays linked to fundraising for the Palestinian militant group Hamas has been frozen, Israeli police said.
The bank account's details were published by Hamas "for the purpose of depositing donation funds", Israeli police said in a statement on Tuesday.
Hamas launched an unexpected and well-coordinated attack on Israel on Saturday in one of the most serious escalations in the Israel-Palestinian conflict in years.
At 146.50 now .... looks like you will be topping up soon !!
12:55 12/07/2021
First forex class action in Britain seeks certification
Case sought against JPMorgan, Citigroup, Barclays, UBS, Natwest
Five-day Competition Appeal Tribunal hearing kicks off Monday
By Kirstin Ridley and Iain Withers
LONDON, July 12 (Reuters) - A specialist London court will decide whether a long-awaited multi-billion pound class action against some of the world's biggest banks over alleged foreign exchange rigging can proceed, after a five-day hearing kicked off on Monday.
JPMorgan , Citigroup , Barclays , UBS and NatWest , along with Japan's MUFG Bank , are braced for the first forex class action in Britain over cartels dubbed "Essex Express" and "Three Way Banana Split".
The European Commission fined all the lenders https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-antitrust-banks-idUSKCN1SM0XS
apart from UBS, which had alerted the body to the two cartels, a total of more than 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) over the matter in 2019.
A similar decision https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-banks-fine-idUSKCN1T70J6
by the Swiss regulator added a further 90 million Swiss francs ($98.49 million) in fines.
Michael O'Higgins, the former chairman of British watchdog The Pensions Regulator, and Phillip Evans, a former inquiry chair at the Competition Markets Authority, are now vying to lead a class action case on behalf of pension funds and asset managers they claim lost out.
"This legal action will ensure that all affected entities - large and small, based in the UK and abroad – are able to obtain the compensation that they are owed," O'Higgins said in a statement ahead of the hearing.
London's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) will decide whether to allow the planned lawsuit to proceed as a so-called collective action and, if so, which class representative is suitable to bring it.
Only Evans' case names MUFG.
JPMorgan, Citi, Barclays, UBS, NatWest and MUFG all declined to comment.
Foreign exchange is the crown jewel of London's financial sector.
With roughly 43% percent of the $8.3 trillion-per-day forex market traded in the city, lawyers have been sharpening swords since the European Commission found that banks shared commercially sensitive customer order information, transaction prices, open currency risk positions and other details between 2007 and 2013.
At the time the fines were levied in 2019, JPMorgan and RBS, now NatWest, as well as UBS, said they had since made changes to their controls. MUFG said it had also taken measures to prevent a re-occurrence.
O'Higgins has instructed U.S. law firm Scott & Scott while Evans is being advised by Hausfeld - the two litigators that co-led a similar U.S. case against 15 banks and helped secure $2.3 billion in settlements for American claimants.
But a CAT judge said in 2019 there could only be one representative for a British lawsuit.
Investment banks across the globe have paid more than a combined $11 billion in fines to settle U.S. and European regulatory allegations that tra
June 1 (Reuters) - :LETTERONE BACKS £1BN UK BROADBAND PLAN TO COMPETE WITH BT - FT.
LONDON/MADRID, May 20 (Reuters) - Britain's competition regulator cleared a $44 billion merger between broadband company Virgin Media and Telefonica's UK mobile network O2 on Thursday, after a months-long review.
Virgin owner Liberty Global and Spain's Telefonica, who agreed a year ago to forge a broadband and mobile powerhouse to challenge market leader BT , hailed the decision as "a watershed moment in the history of telecommunications in the UK".
Farewell Ed Bramson, the corporate raider who promised to deliver a bloody nose for Barclays boss Jes Staley but ended up missing repeatedly and punching himself in the face instead.
Bramson’s investment vehicle Sherborne Investors has finally given up on a campaign to shake up the bank, dumping its entire 6pc stake at what is thought to be a loss.
It is an outcome that can only be described as an emphatic and embarrassing defeat for the New York-based Brit, who had built a near-£2bn stake propelling Sherborne to the top of the Barclays shareholder register.
The City seems glad to see the back of him - Barclays shares jumped nearly 3pc on the news - but Sherborne’s investors might not thank him for what amounts to a pretty fruitless three-year foray.
The fund has offloaded its shares at an average price of 186p, above the 73p they traded at a year ago, but below the 200p mark that it first bought in at just over three years ago.
Share Price is delayed by 15 minutes
Nope : 179.36 - 179.5 up 2.26 (1.27%) today ... so far
May 7 (Reuters) - Sherborne Investors (Guernsey) C Ltd :
SHERBORNE INV. C LD - STATEMENT RE INVESTMENT UPDATE
FUNDS MANAGED BY IT HAVE DISPOSED OF THEIR ENTIRE 6.01% SHAREHOLDING IN BARCLAYS PLC
SHERBORNE INVESTORS HAS INFORMED COMPANY THAT IT BELIEVES THAT RISK OF AND REWARDS FROM A NEW INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY THAT IT HAS IDENTIFIED OFFERS A BETTER RETURN TO COMPANY'S SHAREHOLDERS THAN A CONTINUING INVESTMENT IN BARCLAYS
SHERBORNE INVESTORS HAS INITIATED INVESTMENT INTO SECURITIES OF NEW TARGET COMPANY
Barclays Q1 profit more than doubles as bad loans shrink
Created: 07:01
LONDON, April 30 (Reuters) - Barclays reported first quarter profits more than doubled, despite not releasing cash set aside to cover bad loans from the COVID-19 pandemic as its British peers had done.
Barclays booked a profit before tax for the three months ended March 31 of 2.4 billion pounds ($3.34 billion), up from 923 million pounds a year ago and above the 1.76 billion pound average of analysts' forecasts.
The lender took an impairment charge of 55 mln for further bad loan charges, much less than analysts had forecast.
($1 = 0.7175 pounds)
(Reporting By Lawrence White and Iain Withers, editing by Anna Irrera)
((lawrence.white@thomsonreuters.com; +44 20 7513 5083; Reuters Messaging: @ReutersLawrence))
DEGIRO is The Best !
40.95 at open : DeGiro is the best .... and cheapest allow 70% gearing too ... https://uk.stockbrokers.com/review/degiro
If HSBC are decamping back to HK ... how about Lloyds buying their corporate finance division ? It is where Lloyds have no current presence ... as far as I am aware !
Sold a few Lloyds today ... topping up on Vodafone for the Divi on Thursday ... 4p (or thereabouts) ... plan to sell Vod on Fri morn and back into Lloyds
DECEMBER 11, 2020 2:05 PM LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) - Medieval Catholics could buy their way out of purgatory. No such luck for HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays, NatWest and Standard Chartered. Though the Bank of England will let the lenders pay dividends and buy back shares again next year, the permitted return looks low compared to pre-pandemic levels. It effectively strands banks in investment no man’s land.
The five lenders lost 4% of their collective 167 billion pound market value on Friday morning, following the BoE’s announcement that it would relax a ban on returning cash to shareholders. Big banks are well-capitalised enough to withstand a much bigger-than-expected coronavirus hit, the supervisor said, meaning restrictions implemented in March are no longer necessary.
Yet chairmen like HSBC’s Mark Tucker and Robin Budenberg at Lloyds will hardly have a free hand to distribute spare capital. The BoE is erecting two “guardrails” to enforce prudence over payouts from 2020 earnings, which would begin next year. Banks can only pay the higher of 0.2% of risk-weighted assets at the end of the year, or 25% of cumulative earnings for 2019 and 2020 - adjusted for dividends, buybacks and goodwill impairments. That translates into a meagre average yield of around 2% for the five lenders, according to Breakingviews calculations based on Citigroup and Jefferies data.
Investors in HSBC and Lloyds have grown used to dividend yields more than double that level in the past five years, according to Refinitiv. NatWest is probably the worst-affected: the state-controlled bank’s sky-high common equity Tier 1 ratio of 17.2%, excluding temporary regulatory relief, had raised hopes for much bigger buybacks in 2021. And even though the guardrails may allow Barclays and Standard Chartered to distribute more capital as a proportion of their market value, their shares were still trading at roughly half expected tangible book value for this year on Friday morning. The BoE’s intervention may have permanently raised the cost of equity that investors attach to the sector.
It’s not the central bank’s job to placate shareholders. Nevertheless, the negative reaction on Friday raises the question why it bothered to relax the restrictions. The supervisor has ditched its hawkish position, but not by enough to tempt investors back to the sector. The new halfway house will please nobody.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-boe-banks-breakingviews/breakingviews-boe-leaves-uk-lenders-in-investor-purgatory-idUKKBN28L1R5
UK banks can start paying shareholders dividends again, according to the Bank of England.
I have added this morning and will continue to do so up to and including 16th Dec; Best divi on FTSE at these prices
Payment will be made on 23 December 2020 to holders of ordinary shares recorded on the register as at close of business on 27 November 2020 with an ex-dividend date of 26 November 2020. The quarterly Dividend Yield remains targeted at 2.5% quarterly.
The Board is today declaring an interim dividend of 5.00 pence per ordinary share, in respect of the year ending 31 December 2020. The dividend will be paid on 17 December 2020 to Shareholders on the Register on 27 November 2020.
Last day to trade in order to be eligible for the cash dividend Wednesday, 2 December
Last Day to buy before goes Ex-Div on 19th Nov