Hargreaves Lansdown chief Peter Hargreaves reports record profits as he steps down

Hargreaves Lansdown posted an 18pc rise in pre-tax profits to £86.3m in the year to the end of June. Revenue rose from £132.8m last year to £159m.
Mr Hargreaves said: “I am extremely pleased to report on a record year for the company, which is all the more impressive given the economic uncertainty that we have faced throughout the year.”
He launched the financial-services company in the spare bedroom of his Bristol flat with his business partner Stephen Lansdown in 1981.
In 2007, the company was floated on the stock market at 160p a share, nettng him £80m.
Last year he published a book, In for a Penny, which is part autobiography and part business advice.
Hargreaves Lansdown is paying a final dividend of 0.58p a share on September 29, along with a 1.7p special dividend.
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Moss and Topshop to part company

The company confirmed that the supermodel’s autumn/winter collection, her 14th, will also be her last. However, she may design a number of one-off “capsule” ranges in the future, a spokesman for Arcadia, the owner of the high-street store, said.

Sources say the split was amicable, after a relationship that culminated in Ms Moss’s presence alongside Sir Philip at the opening of Topshop’s flagship US store in New York in April last year.
It is believed the range has come to an end because of the large amount of time that is needed to put together a collection and she wanted to pursue other opportunities.
It is estimated that the four-year arrangement, which is lengthy in fashion circles, earned the supermodel more than £3m.
Ms Moss has just graced the cover of British Vogue magazine for the 30th time in her career.
Sir Philip signed up the Croydon-born supermodel at a time when many speculated her career was coming to an end.
This followed a furore after photographs of her allegedly snorting cocaine were published in a national newspaper in 2005.
Sir Philip was recently appointed as a government advisor to lead a review of public spending.
He will look at expenditure from the last three years and try to identify where savings can be made.
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Credit Agricole sees profits rise

26 August 2010 Last updated at 03:03 ET

French bank Credit Agricole has reported a big rise in profits for the first half of the year, despite feeling the impact of the Greek debt crisis.
Net profits for the first six months rose to 849m euros (£693m; $1.1bn), the bank said.
That was despite a 379m-euro write-down at its Greek banking business Emporiki.
Credit Agricole’s net profits for the second quarter of the year totalled 379m euros, up nearly 90% on the same period of 2009.
They were also higher than forecast by most analysts, and second-quarter revenues of 5.5bn euros also beat expectations.
The bank’s earnings were boosted by a strong performance in its corporate and investment banking businesses, offsetting losses in Greece.
The investment bank made 330m euros in the second quarter, compared with an 87m-euro loss in the same period last year.
Emporiki, Greece’s third-largest lender, last month reported a 325.8m-euro loss for the second quarter, adding to the 209.3m euros lost in the first three months of the year.
Credit Agricole’s chief executive Jean-Paul Chifflet said his bank’s strong performance came despite an economic climate of “persistent uncertainty and economic weakness”.
The bank is the latest French lender to post better-than-expected results, following BNP Paribas and Societe Generale earlier this month.
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Zurich fined £2.3m for data loss

24 August 2010 Last updated at 09:43 ET

The UK operation of Zurich Insurance has been fined £2.27m by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for losing personal details of 46,000 customers.
It is the highest fine levied on a single firm for data security failings.
Margaret Cole, the FSA’s director of enforcement and financial crime, said: “Zurich UK let its customers down badly.”
Stephen Lewis, chief executive of Zurich UK, said: “This incident was unacceptable.”
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Firms across the financial sector would do well to look at the details of this case ”

End Quote Margaret Cole FSA director of enforcement
The data on policyholders, including in some cases bank account and credit card information, went missing in August 2008.
However, Zurich did not become aware of the loss until a year later, when it then began notifying customers.
The information went missing during a routine transfer to a data storage centre in South Africa.
‘Oblivious’
The FSA said in a statement: “Zurich UK failed to take reasonable care to ensure it had effective systems and controls to manage the risks relating to the security of customer data resulting from the outsourcing arrangement.
“The firm also failed to ensure that it had effective systems and controls to prevent the lost data being used for financial crime.”
Margaret Cole added that Zurich “failed to oversee the outsourcing arrangement effectively and did not have full control over the data being processed by Zurich SA”.
“To make matters worse, Zurich UK was oblivious to the data loss incident until a year later.
Continue reading the main story
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Shareholder revolt

Last updated at 4:04 PM on 2nd July 2010

Supermarket giant Tesco has suffered a shareholder blow after nearly 40 per cent of investor votes were cast against pay plans amid concerns over rewards for its US boss.The UK’s biggest supermarket narrowly avoided shareholder defeat at its annual meeting in London, with its directors’ remuneration report voted against by 38% of votes - close to the critical 50% threshold.

Under fire: Tim Mason is head of Tesco’s loss-making US chain fresh & Easy

Tesco faced a barrage of criticism from shareholders over the pay
packet of its US manager, with claims from one lobby group ahead of
today’s meeting of ‘excessive’ compensation awarded to Tim Mason - the
head of Tesco’s loss-making US chain Fresh & Easy.
Mr Mason received £4.3m in the company’s 2009/10 financial year, up
from £3.8m a year earlier, despite a £165m loss at the fledgling US
venture.
Tesco chairman David Reid said the chain would listen and engage with concerned investors, but defended Mr Mason’s pay rewards.

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Stelios is causing a rough ride for easyJet

Recent air rage has seen Stelios quit the airline’s board and persuade a
“friend” to take a defamatory pop at easyJet’s departing boss Andy Harrison.
But the High Court scrap next week looks even more perverse.

Stelios wants a judge to rule on whether easyJet — today a £3bn turnover
business — has breached an agreement at its 2000 float that forces it to
make 75pc of its revenues from the “core activity of passenger transport in
fixed-wing aircraft”.

Breach that and Stelios, whose easyGroup owns the easyJet name, can strip the
carrier of the brand he carefully built. Why he’d do that is anyone’s guess,
since he has £280m tied up in the airline.

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Sick days decline because workers fear of job cuts during recession

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Cary Cooper, a workplace health professor at Lancaster University, said:
“During the recession people are turning up to work when sick because they
are frightened not to turn up to work. The reason sickness absence has
declined is not because we have good [sickness] management, but because
people want to show face.”

The hidden cost to the economy of lost productivity could be “double” the
sickness absence bill, Prof. Cooper warned, as unwell workers often failed
to concentrate or complete tasks effectively.

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UK hits JP Morgan with record £33.3m fine

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These clients did not know that their money was potentially at risk until
today’s announcement. Ironically, some of the fund managers are likely to
have transferred their money to JP Morgan in the wake of Lehman Brothers
collapse, as investment managers looked to put their cash into banks
regarded as being most safe.

A spokesman for JP Morgan declined to comment on the fine and would not say
whether any individuals at the bank had been punished as a result of the
discovery of the error.

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Broker faces jail after £3m HSBC gamble fails

A broker who lost his firm nearly £3 million by shorting shares in HSBC without permission is facing prison after admitting falsifying documents to conceal the unauthorised trades.
Jonathan Bunn, 31, of Weybridge, Surrey, appeared at Southwark Crown Court in London yesterday, where he pleaded guilty to false accounting in breach of the Theft Act. An additional charge of fraud, which he denied, will not be pursued. He is facing up to seven years in prison.
Mr Bunn, who worked at Lewis Charles Securities, a London stockbroker, was also barred by the Financial Securities Authority from working in the City again.
Mr Bunn was accused of shorting almost seven million shares in HSBC between July 22 and July 30 last year using the broker’s own money, despite not being authorised to make proprietary trades. According to the FSA, which alerted the City of London Police to the matter, Mr Bunn concealed these positions by writing out false deal slips to mislead back-office staff into into thinking that his trades were “matched” with clients.

Mr Bunn continued to claim that the trades were genuine even after he was challenged by his superiors, the FSA said. Over several days, during which Mr Bunn did not attend work, Lewis Charles Securities staff sent a series of increasingly frantic e-mails asking him to provide details of his trades. At one point, the head of the interdealer broking desk visited his home to demand an explanation.
Eventually, Mr Bunn admitted in a text message to senior managers that there were no counterparties. “I’m sorry and I realise how serious this is,” he told them.
By the time that Lewis Charles Securities closed the trades, it had lost £2.7 million, the FSA said. Stavros Loizou, the firm’s co-founder and chief executive, personally lost £350,000, the court was told.
Mr Loizou said that Lewis Charles Securities reported the matter to the FSA and co-operated at all times with the investigation. He added: “While this was a tremendous blow, Lewis Charles has made significant strides to get back on track.”
Yesterday David Levy, for the prosecution, told the court: “It was a gamble. The defendant hoped the shares would drop. He made no personal gain, but there was a massive loss.”
Mr Bunn was released on bail and will appear for sentencing on June 24. Judge Geoffrey Rivlin, QC, told him: “This is a very serious matter. You know I cannot make any promises and custody is the likely sentence.”
Margaret Cole, head of enforcement at the FSA, said: “Bunn undertook unauthorised trades which exposed LCS to a significant market risk. His behaviour was both deliberate and dishonest. Such behaviour is woefully short of that expected of approved persons and will not be tolerated.”
Mr Bunn previously worked at ING Barings and JP Morgan Markets before joining Lewis Charles last year, according to the FSA register.
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Warren Buffett: Cadbury deal was ‘dumb’

By James Quinn in Omaha, Nebraska






Published: 9:09PM BST 02 May 2010

In his most outspoken comments on the purchase of the British confectioner to
date, Mr Buffett questioned the financial rationale behind Kraft’s strategy,
said he “hated” the Cadbury deal, and made pointed comments about chief
executive Irene Rosenfeld’s recent $26.3m (£17.2m) pay package.

Mr Buffett - known as the “Sage of Omaha” for his widely accepted investment
wisdom - controls an 8.8pc stake in Kraft through Berkshire Hathaway, his
investment conglomerate.

Having questioned the Cadbury purchase at the time the deal was still being
negotiated in early January, he went one step further over the weekend.
Speaking to some 40,000 Berkshire shareholders at the conglomerate’s annual
meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, Mr Buffett said Kraft ended up paying “a very
fancy price” for the maker of Creme Eggs and Twirls.

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