Aberdeen Asset Management is planning to make big job cuts should it succeed in its £500m takeover of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership in what would be one of the largest investment deals in the sector this year, reports the Financial Times.
The FTSE 100 listed asset manager is the clear frontrunner to buy Swip, which is owned by Lloyds Banking Group. Aberdeen will cut 150 jobs out of a combined workforce of 2,500 if the merger with the Edinburgh-based Swip goes ahead, a person familiar with the situation said.
Co-op to hand 70% of bank to bondholders
The Co-operative Group has struck a rescue deal which will hand control of its banking arm to a group of powerful investors and leave it with 30 per cent, reports The Daily Telegraph.
It also announced plans to close around 50 of its 324 bank branches, about 15 per cent of its estate, without revealing how many jobs will go among the lender’s 9,000 staff.
Britain’s economic growth to quicken but wages stay flat, according to poll
Britain’s recovery will accelerate over the coming months and into the new year after a strong rise in business confidence, according to two surveys of company bosses. But wage rises are likely to remain below inflation, fuelling concern that living standards will fall for a sixth year after the financial crash, reports the Guardian.
The latest ICAEW/Grant Thornton UK Business Confidence Monitor (BCM) forecasts that the economy will grow by 1.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2013, up from 0.7 per cent in the third quarter. The near doubling of the growth rate is a sign that businesses expect a surge in exports and business investment over the next year, the report said.
Eight out of 10 companies want to stay in EU
Britain’s economic interests will be harmed if it quits the European Union or partially withdraws through treaty change, the CBI will tell David Cameron today, reports The Times.
A report for the leading business lobby group claims that membership of the EU is worth an extra 4 per cent to 5 per cent of GDP, up to £78 bn a year to the economy, or about £1,225 for every individual in the UK.
Berlin seeks privacy rules in EU-US trade pact
Germany is to push for tough data protection controls to be included in a proposed EU-US free trade pact in the latest sign of the growing impact of the outrage triggered by Washington’s mass surveillance and concerns about industrial espionage, reports the Financial Times.
Berlin is to press the European Commission to incorporate data safeguards in the negotiations for the planned Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, launched this year by EU leaders and US president Barack Obama.
Aircraft carriers’ cost to rise to £6.2bn
Britain will this week reveal another substantial increase in the cost of building its two new aircraft carriers, declaring that total funding for the programme will rise by another £800m to £6.2bn, reports the Financial Times.
Philip Hammond, defence secretary, is expected to say that a new set of demands – including the need to build a sophisticated aircraft landing system on the ships – have added to the financial burden of the Royal Navy’s flagship project.
