Around 50 million pounds
JC Flowers, the Private Equity house based in New York, has agreed to pay GBP50m for a 49% stake in a Joint Venture with Kent Reliance Building Society (KRBS).
Does JC Flowers see KRBS as a major business opportunity? Hardly, because Read more
What is wrong with a bonus culture in banking?
The European Union parliament will vote next week on new legislation to curb bankers’ bonuses. The rules on bonuses are included within a larger proposal on capital requirements. According to the Financial Times, ‘lawmakers and EU officials welcomed the agreement and said it should help to reduce the “bonus culture” in the banking sector.’
Well here at Vox Sapiens, at risk of repeating ourselves (see Bankers’ bonuses – wrong target) we think the bonus culture should be increased, not reduced. This is because Read more
The US Financial Reform Bill is too long
The US Senate has started to debate the Financial Reform bill. This bill proposes the most sweeping changes to US (and, therefore, global) financial markets regulatory practices since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
So one might think this an extremely important bill, right? So all the Senators have Read more
The incredible story of the Icelandic banking crisis
The Icelandic Special Investigation Committee (SIC) yesterday (April 12th, 2010) delivered its report on the collapse of the three main banks in Iceland. It makes shocking reading.
It can be downloaded here.
At Vox Sapiens, our initial vision was of a couple Escher’s masterpieces. Read more
A new approach to punishing offenders and rewarding the best
The recent financial crisis was exacerbated by several failures, one of which was poor risk management by banks. Previous attempts to coerce management into being more responsible have failed. How about this approach? Read more
Unless you’re a shareholder, point your gun elsewhere
During the last few days many of the large Investment Banks have announced staff bonuses. And in many cases these have been at, or near, record levels. This has led to public outcrys.
As a response, some governments have announced special taxes on these bonuses. And the triumverate of governments, central banks, and financial services industry regulators have all railed against the bonuses.
But why are the bonuses so high? Who should be the real target of the outrage? Read more
To whom are the ratings agencies legally accountable?
So McClatchy Newspapers has discovered that in late 2007 some analysts at Moody’s Investors Service were “downsized” for expressing concerns about the accuracy of the ratings being applied to some of the CDOs (collateralised debt obligations), especially those comprising MBSes (mortgage backed securities).
The news group alleges that Read more
“A brief introduction as background for other posts about annuities”
An annuity is a contract between you and an insurance company whereby the insurance company will pay you a certain amount of money, on a periodic basis, for a specified period. For example, you might pay an insurance company ten thousand dollars and in return you will receive 100 dollars a month for 10 years.
Read more