City A.M. - Issue 1,897 Friday 7 June 2013

BUSINESS WITH PERSONALITY

KING’S LAST VOTE OUTGOING BANK GOVERNOR MAKES FINAL DECISION See Page 3 www.cityam.com

ISSUE 1,897 FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

CITY A.M. AWARDS 2013

Get ready for the event of the year, Page 19

LONDON ON TOP IN RACEFORGROWTH

BY MICHAEL BOW

NUMBER OF FAST GROWING BUSINESSES ACROSS THE UK

TOP 5 FASTEST GROWING LONDON FIRMS NAME LATEST TURNOVER £45.9m

137%

2 Baird Investments

£1.356bn

135%

3 ActivTrades

£20m

101%

4 Troy Asset Management

£23.4m

91%

5 Miroma International

£50.6m

77%

1

SCOTLAND: 3 NORTH EAST: 4 NORTHERN IRELAND: 1 NORTH WEST: 18 THE MIDLANDS: 17

Altenergy

4YR GROWTH

33

HOW HOUSEHOLD NAMES FARE...

43

WALES: 4

55

SOUTH WEST: 4

76

SOUTH EAST: 19

in its 15th year and includes start up companies with sales exceeding £10m and operating profits over than £1m.

Sectors topping the list this time around include the IT, software and telecoms industry with 16 per cent, and financial services with 15 per cent of the share.

London-based companies in the

top 10 are dominated by financerelated companies, including gold specialist Baird Investments, foreign exchange trader ActivTrades and fund manager Troy Asset Management. Media broker Miroma International is also in the group.

London chamber of commerce and industry chief executive Colin Stanbridge said: “The fact that so

many of the hot 100 companies are from London is further demonstration that the city is the place to do business. Whether you are a start-up or a well-established business the environment here serves to encourage business and companies here are clearly thriving.”

A survey of the firms listed in the poll reveal an optimistic outlook on the UK economy, with 83 per cent of entrepreneurs believing the picture will improve over the next 12 months and 75 per cent intending to increase the number of full time employees.

And despite the bleak outlook for the UK high street, six retail companies have made the list, including popular London-based sushi chain Wasabi and budget shop 99p Stores, headquartered in Northampton.

“This year clearly demonstrates the strength and breadth of entrepreneurial activity and business growth from companies that will continue to be the growth engine of the UK economy for many years to come,” said Investec’s Ed Cottrell.

“London and the south east continue to be hubs for expansion and it is hugely encouraging to see growth coming from all corners of the UK.” London’s share of the UK economy now accounts for 21.9 per cent, with active business growth of 7.2 per cent versus 0.7 per cent for the UK overall.

ALLISTER HEATH: Page 2 " "

LONDON’S grip on the British economy is continuing to grow, after a survey revealed almost one-third of the UK’s fastest growing companies are based in the capital.

Privately owned firms across London make up 30 per cent of the UK’s 100 fastest growing companies, according to research released today – with five of the top 10 based in the capital.

Some 49 per cent of the UK’s fastest growing firms are now based in London and the south east, up from 43 per cent last year.

“This is a win-win-win, as investment in London drives jobs and growth not just in our city but across the country as well as strengthening our position in an intensely competitive global market,” London mayor Boris Johnson told City A.M. “London’s attractiveness as a crucible of entrepreneurism is unrivalled,” he added.

Chiswick-based solar panel distributor Altenergy is top of the pile in London and the second fastest growing company in the whole of the UK. It delivered a four-year annual compound growth rate of 137 per cent and £45.9m in turnover last year.

The survey, the Investec Hot 100 published by Real Business, is now

LONDON HOTSPOT FOR 100 FASTEST-GROWING UK FIRMS

FTSE 100!6,336.11 -83.20 DOW"15,040.62 +80.03 NASDAQ" 3,424.05 +22.57 £/$ " 1.559 +0.019 £/€ 1.177 unc €/$ " 1.324 +0.016

FREE

Dollar plunges as uncertainty dogs markets

BY MICHAEL BIRD THE DOLLAR took a nosedive against major currencies yesterday, after an initial data release indicated poor growth in jobs.

Automatic Data Processing, which estimates US employment growth, said the economy had gained only 135,000 jobs in May, less than the 170,000 estimated.

The dollar fell against all other major world currencies, with the pound up 1.3 per cent to around $1.56, and the euro up 1.2 per cent to over $1.32. Official data on jobs is released today, and fears for the dollar’s value are running high. If job creation is poor, it is likely that the Federal Reserve will continue quantitative easing (QE) for the foreseeable future, which may weaken the US currency. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, has pledged to hold QE until unemployment is below 6.5 per cent.

The decline was most marked against the yen, with $1 falling from ¥99 at the start of the day to below ¥96 in the afternoon, before ticking back up to ¥97. The yen is now back to the level it was five weeks ago, erasing recent weakness.

Dollar plunges against the yen 99.0

USD/JPY

98.5 98.0 97.5 97.0 96.5 12:00 pm

2:00 pm 4:00 pm 6:00 pm 8:00 pm 10:00 pm Certified Distribution from 01/04/13 to 28/04/13 is 127,930

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NEWS

To contact the newsdesk email news@cityam.com

London’s importance to the UK economy keeps on growing

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HEN Nathan Mayer Rothschild left the family home in Frankfurt in 1798, aged just 21, and moved to set up shop in England, it was Manchester he chose as his first base, establishing himself as a successful merchant. He only moved to the City of London in 1809, when he took premises at New Court in St Swithin’s Lane, where N.M. Rothschild & Sons are still based today.

This story illustrates how London’s domination of the UK economy is a relatively recent phenomenon; there was a time when other great English cities were powerful competitors.

For example, by 1961 household incomes in the west Midlands were 13 per cent higher than the UK average, beating even London and the south east; service sector jobs in the Birmingham conurbation grew faster than in any other region between

Osborne speaks up for Huawei after spy fears

BY MARION DAKERS THE CHANCELLOR yesterday defended Chinese investors in Britain after a security committee warned of a “shocking” lack of regulatory oversight during a telecoms deal that may have left the UK vulnerable to spying.

Huawei, which signed an equipment deal with BT in 2005, has been banned from selling hardware to US government bodies over security concerns.

The intelligence and security committee said security agents had told them in 2008 that “theoretically, the Chinese State may be able to exploit any vulnerabilities in Huawei’s equipment in order to gain some access to the BT network, which would provide them with an attractive espionage opportunity”.

George Osborne said yesterday that Huawei is considered a “longterm valued investor in the UK”.

“It is a personal priority of mine to increase trade links between the UK and China and I cannot emphasise enough that the UK is open to Chinese investment.”

Huawei stressed its independence from the Chinese state yesterday and pointed out that BT was satisfied with its work.

EDITOR’S LETTER ALLISTER HEATH 1953 and 1964 (as pointed out in a History of Birmingham by A. Stutcliffe and R. Smith, cited on the website of the LSE Spatial Economics Research Centre). Needless to say, output per worker today is much higher in central London.

While London last peaked in 1911, and then entered decades of relative decline, our capital city has been in the ascendant again since the 1980s.

Its relatively good performance – and the tragic decline of the other great cities – means that London is now the

most important it has ever been to the UK economy, accounting for a record high of 21.9 per cent of UK gross value added. When the commuter belt is added in, the London economic region’s lead is now unassailable.

The latest evidence comes from the Investec/Real Business 2013 Hot 100 list of the UK’s fastest growing privately-owned companies. Mid-sized businesses based in London account for 30 per cent of the list, including five of the top 10. Businesses based in London and the south east makes up 49 per cent of the top 100, up from 43 per cent in 2012.

One way of assessing the full reach of London’s economic area is to look at where else house prices move in tandem with London prices. There is the effect from commuters – but also those relocating out of the capital but taking some of its wealth with them.

Savills has crunched the numbers.

Some areas south and south west of London, including Windsor, Guildford, Dorking and Redhill/Reigate share over 97.5 per cent of their house price movements in previous cycles with the capital, behaving like London boroughs. Large areas to the north, south and west of London, incorporating St Albans, Oxford, Reading and Winchester, share over 95 per cent of their house price movements with Greater London. The M4 corridor, stretching to Bristol, shows a 90-95 per cent correlation. Areas where the correlation is at least 80 per cent include North Suffolk, Somerset and Herefordshire as well as Essex and Kent. On that definition, London’s city state extends over most of southern England, south of a line from the Severn to the Wash, and includes 25.5m people.

There are two lessons. First, much more needs to done to boost the UK’s

Car purchases accelerate to pre-crisis levels in May

BY KASMIRA JEFFORD

Ford’s Fiesta and Focus are the best-selling cars in Britain through the year so far.

Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight said: “It is evident that private new car sales have been supported by attractive offers and packages, as well as by motorists’ desire to buy more fuel efficient cars at a time of high petrol prices”.

The SMMT noted that because car sales had recently been lower, there was now a relative shortage of used

allister.heath@cityam.com Follow me on Twitter: @allisterheath

Foxtons owners hire banks to prepare float

BY MICHAEL BIRD NEW MOTOR sales have now reached the peak last seen before the recession impacted the industry, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) According to figures released by the SMMT yesterday, the market for new cars in May expanded by 11 per cent on the same month in 2012.

The rise was powered by private demand, which shot up 20.9 per cent, alongside a 3.2 per cent rise in fleet registrations. There were 180,111 new cars registered as sold in May. The best-selling cars remained the Ford Fiesta and Focus, and the proportion of petrol cars increased to 48 per cent, from 46.3 per cent 12 months ago. The number of alternative fuel vehicles, typically hybrid or electric cars, actually fell by 5.2 per cent over the year. The number of new cars bought for business increased roughly in line with the overall trend, with an increase of 9.4 per cent.

The market for new cars has now grown continuously for the past 15 months, reflecting increases in private sales. The industry is quite buoyant, as the first UK trade surplus in cars since 1976 was recorded last year.

regions. Corporation tax could be abolished in Northern Ireland, for example, which ought to be turned into a giant, low tax, low regulation enterprise zone. The dead hand of the state has debilitated large swathes of the UK, preventing them from finding a post-industrial future.

But London and its region are the jewels in the UK’s economic crown.

They too need lower taxes and a supply-side revolution to fulfil their immense potential. They need more infrastructure, including privately financed airport capacity and a housebuilding boom to cater for a growing population. The City and the finance industry also need to be allowed to thrive again. London is a great asset; it needs to be set free to grow, prosper and create even more jobs.

cars being sold second hand, and so some consumers were looking to buy new vehicles instead.

Mike Baunton, SMMT chief executive, added a cautionary note: “continued economic uncertainty abroad, particularly in the rest of Europe, will mean that manufacturers remain cautious about performance in the second half of 2013”.

THE OWNER of estate agent chain Foxtons has hired investment banks to prepare the company for flotation on the London Stock Exchange.

BC Partners, the private equity firm which bought Foxtons back from its banks last year, has appointed Credit Suisse, Canaccord Genuity, and Numis Securities, to oversee the listing.

The appointments, which were first reported on Sky News, could value Foxtons at more than £400m.

It would also mark the latest in a string of big initial public offerings (IPOs), with Countrywide, the UK’s largest estate agency, coming to market most recently in March.

This year’s other big float was housebuilder Crest Nicholson, with both companies taking advantage of buoyant equity markets and a bounce back in the London’s housing market.

BC Partners acquired the chain for about £390m at the height of the buyout boom in March 2007, making an estimated £300m for founder Jon Hunt.

The firm was then seized by banks in 2010 after breaching its bank covenants. BC Partners then took back control last year.

WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING Big Tobacco bets on e-cigarettes China’s Wanda near Sunseeker deal A Chinese property group is close to buying Sunseeker, Britain’s largest luxury yachtmaker by sales, underscoring the growing appetite for European luxury assets among Chinese buyers.

Dalian Wanda is expected to pay about £300m for Sunseeker, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The transaction is likely to be finalised before the end of this month. “We bought the best yacht company in the UK,” Wang Jianlin, the chairman and founder of Beijing-based Wanda, said.

Big tobacco in the US is raising its bet on the growth of electronic cigarettes to offset the decline of traditional smoking with Reynolds American, the maker of Camel and Pall Mall launching its first smokeless, battery-powered device.

Coulson denies message intercepting Andy Coulson, the former head of communications for UK prime minister David Cameron, has appeared in court to deny three criminal charges connected to his time at the News of the World. His court hearing lasted around 10 minutes.

Bootle to claim biggest prize yet

Mondelez chocolate doesn’t melt

Criminal Charges in Libor Case

One of the City’s best-known economists stands to make tens of millions of pounds after hanging a “for sale” sign over his consultancy business, Capital Economics, which reported pretax profits of £4.9m last year.

Mondelez International, which makes Oreo cookies, has spent at least 10 years on research and is close to introducing the new snacks, according to Lawrence MacDougall, the company’s president for eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa.

US and British authorities are preparing to bring criminal charges against former employees of Barclays for their alleged roles trying to manipulate benchmark interest rates.

Chinese give firms cool reception China used its position as the host of a high-profile business forum to launch a surprise attack yesterday on the “double standards” of western companies operating in the country.

Find your next step at

Heathrow looks to south-west Heathrow Airport is said to be changing its plans for a third runway and considering building a one to the southwest of its site, rather than the north.

Airbus Nears First A350 Flight Airbus aims to fly its new A350 jetliner for the first time in coming days, a milestone in achieving the company's target of getting the aircraft approved and into service next year.

CITYAMCAREERS.com

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King’s final meeting ends with a whimper as Bank votes to hold

BY JULIAN HARRIS

Draghi: Markets will be hostile if states drag feet

BY TIM WALLACE

EUROZONE countries must reform their economies quickly, rather than be lulled into a false sense of security by the relatively benign market conditions, European Central Bank (ECB) boss Mario Draghi said yesterday.

Countries like France and Spain have been given extra time by the European Council to cut down their budget deficits.

But if they use the extra time to relax and slow down reforms, markets will start to doubt their determination to regain competitiveness, and borrowing costs will soar once again, the bank’s boss warned.

“It is essential that Eurozone countries do not unravel their efforts to reduce government budget deficits,” Draghi said.

“It is very important that decisions by the European Council to extend the time frame for the correction of excessive

fiscal deficits should remain reserved for exceptional circumstances.”

And they must push ahead with freeing up their labour markets, increasing employment and making their economies more competitive, Draghi insisted.

The ECB held interest rates yesterday, though Draghi revealed they had considered implementing a negative deposit rate.

Meanwhile, the European Commission yesterday hit back at claims that the bailout agreed with Greece contained flaws and should have been done differently.

A spokesman said the EC “fundamentally disagreed” with this week’s admission by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that mistakes had been made.

An upfront debt restructuring in 2010 would have held significant risks, he argued.

Mario Dragi fears states have a new excuse to slow down reforms

Floatation of grim reaper insurer values Partner at around £1.55bn

BY JAMES WATERSON

! !

STEVE Groves, the 38-year-old chief executive of Partnership Assurance, will receive around £20m in cash this morning as his company completes its IPO ahead of schedule and at the top end of its price range.

Last night a person with knowledge of the deal told City A.M. that Partnership has hit a price of 385p a share after setting an initial range of 325p-400p. This means the company is valued at around £1.55bn.

Strong demand enabled the specialist life insurer to bring forward its market debut by more than a week to today. The company sells more generous annuities to

members of the public with reduced life expectancy, such as smokers or people with heart disease.

Groves is selling a quarter of his five per cent stake in the business and his remaining shares will be valued at around £60m.

He will be celebrating with his management team, who collectively own a further 15 per cent of the business. Cinven, a private equity business, control the remaining 80 per cent.

Cinven bought Partnership in June 2008 for around €200m (£172m), meaning they have increased the company’s value by 800 per cent in the last five years.

INSIDE TRACK: Page 8

stay at 0.5 per cent while the size of the total QE programme will remain at £375bn.

King, who has been governor of the Bank since July 2003, will step down at the end of this month to be replaced by Canadian Mark Carney.

Some economists expect Carney to introduce a pledge over how long rates will be held down. ! !

Sir Mervyn King has been head of the Bank of England since the summer of 2003

OUTGOING Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King completed his final rate-setting meeting yesterday, as the monetary policy committee (MPC) decided to hold its current stance.

In recent months King has voted for the Bank to expand its assetpurchasing programme – known as quantitative easing (QE) – by an extra £25bn to a total of £400bn,

yet has been outvoted by colleagues.

On 19 June the minutes of this month’s meeting will reveal if King again voted for further stimulus, or if he changed his mind on the back of more bullish economic data emerging in recent weeks.

MPC members Paul Fisher and David Miles have also been keen on delivering more stimulus.

Following yesterday’s decision, the Bank’s main interest rate will

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Lloyds communications boss on £1.3m salary and bonus package

BY TIM WALLACE A CLOSE adviser to Lloyds’ chief executive was hired on a package worth up to three times his previous pay deal, it emerged yesterday.

Matt Young moved over from Santander, following chief Antonio Horta Osorio when he was poached to lead the group after its bailout.

His base salary is £350,000 per year with a bonus of up to £535,000 and

long-term incentives of a maximum £350,000. Any bonus is deferred for three years and paid in shares.

Young heads up the group’s public relations arm, as well as its government and regulatory relations, branding, employee engagement and social responsibility programmes.

He sits on the bank’s executive committee but is not on the board.

As a result his pay package would not usually be made public. However

a document disclosing the details was leaked to the Evening Standard.

“Matt is part of the new management team brought in to turn around the bank,” said a Lloyds spokesperson.

“A significant majority of his pay is in shares, deferred and will only pay out if the transformation of Lloyds is successful over many years. The new management team will only do well if the taxpayer does well.”

Matt Young heads up Lloyds’ PR, government relations and social responsibility operations

City hits out at Europe’s bid to take over Libor

BY TIM WALLACE

" "

FRENCH regulators know less about Libor than their London counterparts and would not be able to run the key interbank lending rate as well, business group TheCityUK said yesterday.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) and European Commission want to move the benchmark to Paris under the control of the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma).

It is part of a wider plan to shake up the index after banks and brokers were found to be rigging the rate to make more money from their trading positions or to hold down the rate to disguise rising funding costs in the financial crisis.

Barclays, RBS and UBS have all been fined hundreds of millions of pounds each for fiddling the rate.

However the British authorities argue t h e y have already taken

major steps to restore trust in Libor promptly.

It has been taken off the British Bankers’ Association, which used to run the rate. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has scrapped many Libor indices in less used currencies and at unusual maturities, leaving only the most liquid rates.

Baroness Hogg is deciding who will be the next controller of the rate – potentially an existing market data provider.

City groups agreed the rate has already been improved and attacked the idea of taking it to France.

“The supervision of Libor indices and benchmarking should be carried out by those with the closest knowledge of the market and who demonstrate the best market understanding,” said TheCityUK’s Chris Cummings. “In our opinion, that is the FCA – especially when its location is considered. London is a global financial centre, a hub for financial and related professional services and a major European hub for international finance.”

DEBATE: Page 25

Baroness Hogg will decide the next controller of Libor

THE EU’S PLAN ! The European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) wants to control benchmarks like Libor, moving the interbank rate from London to Paris. ! Esma and the European Banking Authority (EBA) agree with many of the UK’s plans, such as basing the benchmark rates on real transactions in liquid markets. ! But it wants greater European oversight as data from the Eurozone is used, and markets in the Eurozone use the data.

! The group believes centralised European control will also give greater continuity to the indices over time. ! Even proprietory indices – that is, private ones complied for clients, not the public – could be covered by the rules. ! If governance is not strong enough, the indices will be banned from being linked to products like mortgages. ! Retail investors in particular could be given greater access to past data and the performance of indices to assess their historic performance.

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FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

Japanese bank sells £260m of Barclays stake

BY TIM WALLACE SUMITOMO Bank yesterday sold half of its Barclays’ stake, a holding it acquired at the height of the credit crunch.

It is the latest in a run of foreign investors who have taken profits from the investments they made when the bank raised funds to shore up its position in the financial crisis.

The £260.7m sale, which was completed just before the stock market opened yesterday, helped to push down the stock price, leaving Barclays’ shares down 3.73 per cent on the day at 304.5p.

Sumitomo bought 160m shares in 2008 at 296p, a £500m investment in total.

The sale leaves them with just under half of that stake left, amounting to around 0.6 per cent of Barclays’ shares. Sumitomo made a profit of roughly £10.7m on this sale.

Barclays said at the time of the fundraising Sumitomo’s investment would open the door to closer cooperation between the banks, and in July 2010 they set up a joint private bank-

ing venture with Nikko Cordial Securities for wealthy customers in Japan, called SMBC Barclays Wealth Division.

Sumitomo said the share sale would have no impact on its business cooperation with Barclays.

The bank’s biggest shareholder is Qatar which holds 814m shares, equivalent to 6.33 per cent of Barclays, according to data from Morningstar.

The third largest stake is that of Sheikh Mansour, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family with 758.4m shares, amounting to a 6.19 per cent stake.

Both Qatar and Abu Dhabi contributed to the £7.3bn fundraising round in 2008, and both have begun to sell down their stakes.

Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund sold the remainder of its warrants for Barclays stock late last year, instruments which gave it the right to purchase shares at a price below the current market level.

And Sheikh Mansour has now offloaded much of his stake in the bank through a hedging deal with Japanese bank Nomura.

Ed Miliband yesterday said if Labour gained power it would cap welfare spending

Miliband hints at Labour plan to extend the retirement age

BY JAMES WATERSON

! !

ED MILIBAND yesterday suggested Labour would extend the retirement age, as he detailed how he would seek to control welfare spending.

“On pensions, we know we have a rising elderly population and a rising budget,” he told an audience in docklands. “The way to make this sustainable is to increase the number of people in the working population supporting our elderly.

And therefore to show a willingness to adjust the retirement age.”

The opposition leader said a future Labour government would

have limited spending power and promised to set a cap on structural welfare budgets. He also suggested the party would not restore child benefit for high earners and wants to cut housing benefit.

Miliband also attempted to shape the language used to describe state benefits, with Labour believing the terms used in the debate have become toxic. Miliband said “social security” 38 times in the speech, but “welfare” was only used six times.

He also dismissed accusations that Labour avoided tax on a £1.65m gift of shares from donor John Mills.

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US Treasury prices GM stock sale at $34.41 a share to raise $1.1bn

BY CITY A.M. REPORTER The US Treasury said last night it was selling 30m shares of General Motors at $34.41 (£22) each, raising roughly $1.03bn as part of its ongoing effort to exit from the bailed-out company and reduce losses to taxpayers.

The public offering, which coincided with GM’s re-entry to the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, will take the amount recouped for US

taxpayers so far to $32.53bn. That represents a $16.97bn shortfall from the original $49.5bn bailout price tag. GM shares closed yesterday at $34.44.

Treasury officials have said the goal was not to turn a profit but to save US jobs. GM’s rescue, as the nation struggled to survive a severe recession, helped keep the US auto industry alive. The costs of it going under would have been much

higher, officials argue.

With the sale, Treasury will still hold 189.2m shares. It has said that it plans to completely exit the holding by April 2014. It would have to sell the shares at an average price of $89.69 each to spare taxpayers from any loss.

The offering was taking place along with the sale of 20m shares of GM stock held by the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust.

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Construction up as house prices keep on rising

BY TIM WALLACE HOUSE prices increased again last month, while building projects picked up and the government’s latest plan to help those with a low deposit buy a house gained traction, a raft of new data showed yesterday.

Prices across the UK jumped 2.6 per cent in the year to May, the fastest pace since 2010 according to Halifax.

The monthly increase of 0.4 per cent is the fourth consecutive increase and takes the average price to £166,898.

And construction activity is also picking up at last. Glenigan’s study of the industry found new construction activity increased by 1.9 per cent in the three months to May. The value of new private housing projects shot up 15 per cent compared with the same period of 2012.

And new infrastructure projects saw a 31.3 per cent increase on the year.

“The improvement in the weather seen during April and May has allowed projects placed on hold in the first quarter to get underway,” said

Glenigan economist Andrew Whiffin.

“The large amount of road refurbishment projects that started in the last month is testament to this.”

Meanwhile 4,000 new properties have been reserved by purchasers using the Help to Buy Scheme, according to the Home Builders Federation.

For the last two months buyers with small deposits have been able to take equity loans from the government to enable them to get a mortgage.

From next year the government will also offer buyers with small deposits a loan guarantee to stimulate demand.

House prices are bouncing back 3 Annual change in house prices % 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 -0.5 -1 -1.5 -2 May

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IN BRIEF Jefferies to open office in Moscow ! Investment bank Jefferies is opening an office in Moscow, according to sources familiar with the plans. The new base will be headed up by industry veteran Ildar Iksanova, a metals and mining specialist formerly of Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse. Jefferies will become the latest investment bank to set up an office in Russia, following Goldman Sachs, Barclays and UBS into the country.

Watchdog hires insurance grandee

Marc Bolland received 42.5 per cent of the maximum bonus he could have earned

Marks and Spencer chief Bolland sees pay package cut by a third

BY KASMIRA JEFFORD MARC Bolland, chief executive of Marks & Spencer, received a 25 per cent hike in his bonus last year, but missed out on a payout from the retailer’s performance share plan after its worst profits in four years.

The retailer’s annual report, published yesterday, shows Bolland pocketed a short term cash and shares bonus of £829,000 compared to £663,000 the previous year.

Bolland’s total remuneration,

however, fell to £2.1m from £3.2m in 2012, when he received a £1.2m payout from a 2009 performance share plan that had vested.

A disappointing performance last year meant Bolland and other executive directors missed targets for a payout from the long-term incentive this year.

Pre-tax profits fell six per cent to £665.2m in the year to 30 March, as its clothing arm continued to suffer.

Bolland’s salary and pension benefits have remained unchanged at £1.3m since joining in 2010.

! Insurance specialist Nick Prettejohn is joining the new financial watchdog, the Prudential Regulation Authority.

Prettejohn, currently chairman of Brit Insurance Holdings and director of Legal & General, will take up the spot on the PRA board from Monday. His sector track record, which also includes six years as chief executive of Lloyd’s of London, chimes with the PRA’s new responsibility for insurance firms.

Fresh board reshuffle at SABMiller ! Brewing group SABMiller said yesterday that deputy chairman John Manser will act as chair indefinitely while Graham Mackay is on medical leave.

Mackay, who is undergoing treatment for a brain tumour, stepped back from his executive chairman responsibilities in April. As part of the board reshuffle, SABMiller said Mark Armour will take over as audit committee chairman. The firm has already promoted Alan Clark to chief executive.

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NEWS

It’s a pity there is no external research for Partnership

A

s the £1.55bn flotation of Partnership Assurance reaches its taking-off point, there is reason for celebration in London.

This latest IPO has gone according to plan, quicker than planned even, and has generally achieved a result that would have been unthinkable a year ago in London, when the door on the new issues market was virtually slammed shut.

With Partnership in the bag, this has already been the best year for London IPOs since before the financial crash in 2007. And Partnership is the first

INSIDE TRACK DAVID HELLIER sale in London by a private equity group since the IPO market collapsed, with institutions citing unrealistic valuations as part of the trouble.

This is all positive and yet there are still niggles to make one feel nervous about the state of the market and the

IPO process as a whole. To take the latter point first, it seems incredible to some that there has so far been no independent research written on Partnership.

Independent research is not necessary for a flotation process to be considered well run but the input of industry specialists who work for banks that are not tied to a deal is generally considered a healthy thing.

Those banks who are tied to a deal, in this case Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, KBW, Panmure Gordon and

Evercore, are forbidden from publishing research for fear they could be deemed to be seen to be promoting the company’s stock in the way that, say, Henry Blodget did during the dotcom boom.

Their research departments do write notes which are available to potential institutional investors but they are unable to publish these publicly.

On the other hand those who are unconnected to the deal have in this case, as is common these days, produced nothing for the investment community to consider.

For one thing, banks unconnected to a float are normally not paid by institutional shareholders to publish research. But they are also largely kept out of the process, being deprived of the numbers they say they need.

“It’s a pity independent analysts can’t get access at the earliest opportunity,” Shore Capital’s Eamonn Flanagan told me yesterday. “We’re being asked about Partnership’s value by clients all the time, but we can’t form a view because we can’t get access to detailed numbers.”

Flanagan, like other unconnected analysts, have been kept out of meetings with Partnership’s management until the shares in the group start trading. The banks say this is mainly for

legal reasons but they point out that they have engaged with non-syndicate analysts.

As with most IPOs these days the prospectus for the company will be issued at the end of the marketing process rather than at the beginning.

Independent brokers will be brought in to meet management after a blackout period of 40 days or so, but surely their involvement would have been beneficial at an earlier date.

Partnership may be a fine company and its core selling point, being able to offer higher annuity rates to clients whose medical conditions or lifestyle choices (for example, smoking) make them more likely to topple over earlier than their peers (with lower reserve requirements), may be a winning formula. But experts in the sector should be encouraged to scrutinise such assumptions. They’re not doing so now.

The other thing is this. Whereas in London we’re celebrating eight IPOs, in New York it is currently 75. We have a way to go.

City A.M. is hosting an IPO roundtable discussion in association with Jefferies on 20 June at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please email if you are interested in attending. david.hellier@cityam.com

38 floors, to be precise. 180m straight up. Tackle the Gherkin for the NSPCC, and earn the right to call yourself a Gherkineer.

Or bring your family and meet Maxwell the alpaca and friends at our family Basecamp festival.

Mountainous fun, in the City.

National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Weston House, 42 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3NH. Incorporated by Royal Charter. Registered charity numbers 216401 (England and Wales) and SC037717 (Scotland).

Photography courtesy of Nick Meek, represented by Siobhan Squire.

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NEWS

Obama defends Verizon phone data collection

BY HARRY BANKS

BY MARION DAKERS

Ashley Almanza faced shareholders just six days after becoming chief executive

New G4S boss tells investors he will repair its damaged reputation

BY CITY A.M. REPORTER THE new chief executive of security group G4S said yesterday he will cut costs and push deeper into fast growing developing markets as he battles to restore the company’s image after a high profile staffing blunder at the 2012 Olympics.

Ashley Almanza addressed G4S’s annual shareholder meeting after a roller-coaster start to life at the company, becoming chief executive six days ago having only joined as chief financial officer last month.

“One of my principal objectives is to try and put the Olympics and some of the setbacks behind us,”

Almanza said, referring to G4S’s failure to provide 10,400 staff for the London Games, a debacle which cost the firm £88m.

“There is no question that our reputation has suffered on the back of the Olympics particularly.”

He also backed G4S’s push into emerging markets where it wants to grow revenue from a third to half of its total by 2019, saying the strategy was “absolutely right” All of the resolutions proposed at the meeting passed, though a sizeable 21.58 per cent of shareholders voted to oppose the directors’ remuneration package.

THE CAPITALIST: Page 12

EASYJET has boosted its passenger numbers above 60m a year for the first time, the budget carrier announced yesterday.

The orange-liveried carrier said traffic rose 5.6 per cent in the 12 months to the end of May, helped by fuller planes and a string of new routes across Europe.

The company has doubled its traffic since 2005, and last year launched a push into reserved seating and other perks for business travellers to broaden its customer base.

But flights to holiday destinations Alicante, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Geneva and Malaga are its most popular, with these five together attracting almost 7m passengers a year, EasyJet said yesterday.

easyJet PLC

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THE OBAMA administration acknowledged yesterday that it is collecting a massive amount of telephone records from at least one carrier, reopening the debate over privacy even as it defended the practice as necessary to protect Americans against attack.

The admission comes after the Guardian newspaper published a secret court order related to the records of millions of Verizon Communications customers on its website on Wednesday.

A senior administration official did not specifically confirm the report, but noted the published court order pertains only to data such as a telephone number or the length of a call, and not the subscribers’ identities or the content of the telephone calls.

The order requires the government to turn over so-called metadata such as a list of numbers that called other US or international numbers as well

as other transactional information on the time and location of calls.

Such information is “a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States,” the official said, speaking on the condition of not being named.

“It allows counter-terrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States,” the official added.

The revelation raises fresh concerns about President Barack Obama’s handling of privacy and free speech issues. His administration is already under fire for searching Associated Press journalists’ calling records and the emails of a Fox television reporter as part of its inquiries into leaked government information.

Verizon has declined to comment.

It remains unclear clear whether the practice extends to other carriers.

EasyJet now carrying 60m people a year

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THECAPITALIST Oops, G4S did it again: Breach of security at AGM

AS READERS will remember, the day he stepped down from security firm G4S, Nick Buckles was holding his head high at the Pelham Bell Pottinger summer party in a dashing Primark three-piece suit.

However, the former chief executive kept his distance from the firm’s AGM yesterday, leaving new boss Ashley Almanza to take the floor.

Lucky, too, as the room at Salters’ Hall in Moorgate was packed – that is until a large group of attendees stood

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FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

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up and revealed themselves to be secret protestors rather than shareholders, promptly getting themselves kicked out and leaving the place much emptier than when the meeting had started.

Quite an embarrassing security breach given the nature of the firm’s operations.

Let’s just hope they outsourced the guarding duties to a third party on this occasion.

A protestor outside the G4S AGM in the City yesterday

Got A Story? Email thecapitalist@cityam.com

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Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has been doing his best to play down the rather embarrassing news this week that his “social mobility tsar” former BBC Dragons’ Den star James Caan had helped both his daughters get jobs while at the same time chiding others for giving their offspring a helping hand. He was in full damage control mode on his Call Clegg radio show yesterday, telling host Nick Ferrari that the social mobility project cost “virtually nothing” and adding: “By the way, James Caan is not a tsar of any description.” Political back tracking or backstabbing The Capitalist wonders.

Former England rugby player Simon Shaw on his bike outside Gaucho in Broadgate

Lads on tour: Former rugby stars cycle to Paris on seven-seater FORMER England and Lions international rugby player Simon Shaw was getting involved in a very different game of sevens yesterday.

Shaw has roped in rugby pals Nick Easter, Tim Payne, Serge Betsen and Kenny Logan to join him on a seven-man cycle ride

EDITED BY CALLY SQUIRES

from London to Paris in July – all in aid of rugby charity Restart and Teenage Cancer trust.

England player Easter told The Capitalist that he wasn’t expecting a quiet journey: “The tales from the Lions tours are legendary – I’m expecting the same from this trip.”

There was no sign of incoming governor Mark Carney (pictured) at the back of the room scribbling notes as Sir Mervyn King gave his last briefing as Bank of England boss at the monetary policy committee meeting yesterday. However, it won’t be long until the new bank boss is a regular in the Square Mile, when he takes up his new position on 1 July. Have you spotted Carney roaming the City yet? If so, send all pap snaps to The Capitalist at the usual address.

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Network Rail’s debt pile soars beyond £30bn

BY MARION DAKERS DEBTS at taxpayer-backed Network Rail (NR) have ballooned above £30bn in the last year, the owner of Britain’s rail infrastructure revealed yesterday.

Net debt at the group rose 11.2 per cent to £30.36bn, as it shelled out more than £5bn for around 2,000 ongoing upgrade and maintenance projects.

Operating costs also rose, by 8.8 per cent to £3.98bn, which NR said was caused by depreciation of assets and £58m spent dealing with weather-related damage.

NR’s total financing costs rose 3.4 per cent to £1.42bn over the last year, which included £1.2bn on repayment of borrowings.

Revenues, which come from state subsidies and fees paid by train operators as well as bond issues, rose 3.2 per cent to almost £6.2bn, while operating profits were down slightly at £2.2bn.

Network Rail also appears on track for a hefty fine from the regulator for failing to hit punctuality goals.

It said 90.9 per cent of trains ran on time in the year, down on last year’s 91.6 per cent and sinking further below the Office of Rail Regulation’s 92 per cent target.

“The challenge we have faced over the last year, and will continue to face in the years ahead, is one of success – more people wanting to use more trains, more of the time,” said finance director Patrick Butcher.

Network Rail said that passenger numbers are rising at double the rate forecast in 2009.

The results follow last week’s news that its bosses would receive less than a third of their potential bonuses this year, but will still collectively receive £350,000.

The group’s £37bn five-year spending plan will come under scrutiny next week when the ORR publishes its response to the figures. The plan will run from 2014 and outlines spending on flood defences, signal upgrades and more seats, particularly during rush hours.

Eurotunnel hits out at ferry ban

BY MARION DAKERS EUROTUNNEL yesterday said it will appeal the Competition Commission’s ban on its ferry services from Dover.

The Channel Tunnel operator, which launched a ferry service last summer after buying boats from collapsed firm SeaFrance, would have controlled more than half of the cross-Channel market.

Eurotunnel described the twoyear ban as “incomprehensible and seriously disproportionate”.

Network Rail was set up as an independent but state-backed group in 2003

WHY IS NETWORK RAIL IN SO MUCH DEBT? NETWORK Rail’s £30bn debt pile would be enough to send most corporate bosses into a cold sweat.

But the owner of Britain’s railways was always designed to run in the red. NR was set up as an independent but statebacked group in 2003, in the wake of listed predecessor Railtrack’s collapse.

NR is expected to issue a stream of bonds in various currencies, in addition to its state subsidies, to fund operations.

These bonds are guaranteed by the state, a backstop for which Network Rail pays the exchequer around £200m a year.

Happily for a government that is trying to rein in its debts, Network Rail’s independent status means its liabilities do not appear on the state’s books.

With assets of £46.4bn, Network Rail has permission to raise billions more in this way. Its current bond scheme is set up to issue £44bn.

The Office of Rail Regulation is working on ways to keep NR’s funding sustainable, including a cap on debts at 75 per cent of its assets (its current ratio is 65 per cent).

However, there is no firm plan on the horizon to reduce the overall debt level.

Volkswagen to control MAN

BY CITY A.M. REPORTER VOLKSWAGEN is set to gain full strategic and financial control over truckmaker MAN when it wields its 75 per cent stake to approve a vote at MAN’s annual shareholders’ meeting today.

Volkswagen has tabled a motion to “dominate” MAN and pool both companies’ cashflows, as Europe’s biggest carmaker eyes savings by integrating MAN more closely with its other truck brand, Scania of Sweden.

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NEWS

Shell says EU’s oil price probe may take years

BY SUZIE NEUWIRTH THE EUROPEAN Commission’s probe into allegations of oil price fixing could take years, according to Shell, one of the companies under review.

“It is important to bear in mind that this is an ongoing investigation into the facts and potential evidence, and it could be a number of years before it concludes,” a Shell spokesperson told City A.M. via email.

Oil giant Shell, along with BP, Statoil, ENI and price reporting agency Platts, all confirmed last month that they are under investigation by the EC. Since then, commodities trading houses including Glencore, Gunvor, Vitor and Mercuria have been asked to submit information, although they are not under review.

An antitrust lawyer who chose to remain anonymous due to their relationship with one of the companies under review told City A.M. that the EC

investigation would most likely take years to complete, particularly due to the number of companies involved in the case. However, the lawyer added that criticism of the regulator for taking too long in the past could lead the EC to speed up proceedings.

The lawyer warned that the EC is issuing increasingly heavy penalties. “For cartel cases, the limit for a fine is 10 per cent of the group’s turnover. This has not happened yet but penalties are getting bigger and bigger.”

The EC announced last month that it had carried out unannounced raids on the premises of several companies on the suspicion that they were manipulating oil prices.

The investigation has already drawn comparisons with the Libor scandal, which has seen several banks receive fines for manipulating interbank lending rates.

The European Commission, BP and Platts declined to comment.

Interdealer brokers get regulatory break

BY MICHAEL BOW BELEAGUERED interdealer brokers (IDB) were given a boost yesterday after analysts said easing regulatory pressures could spell a turnaround for the sector.

Brokers Icap and Tullett Prebon, the top biggest interdealer brokers in the world, rose on the FTSE earlier in trading yesterday after banking giant HSBC said new rules from a US trading watchdog would help

stabilise revenues at the businesses, following recent declines.

Icap, led by City stalwart Michael Spencer, was also given a boost by electronic broking figures showing an 11 per cent year on year increase in volumes at the firm.

The company rose 1.71 per cent yesterday after a sharp spike in the price earlier in the day. Tullett Prebon, led by City veteran Terry Smith, closed the day down slightly after an early surge in its share price.

IN BRIEF Diageo reshuffles executive team ! Diageo yesterday announced a shake-up of its management team, less than a month after chief executive Paul Walsh revealed plans to retire. The drinks firm has promoted Andy Fennell, chief marketing officer, to president of its African division. Syl Saller, global innovation director, will succeed him as marketing chief. They will take up their roles on 1 July, at the same time that chief operating officer Ivan Menezes succeeds Walsh.

Europe debt funding gap shrinks KKR was co-founded by Henry Kravis (above), George Roberts and Jerome Kohlberg

KKR closes first UK deal after turning bullish on the economy

BY MICHAEL BOW WALL Street buyout giant KKR completed its first ever European property acquisition yesterday, snapping up a trio of UK retail parks after sensing a turnaround in the British economy.

The private equity titan, cofounded by Henry Kravis and immortalised in best selling book Barbarians at the Gates, said it had bought a portfolio from Resolution Property comprised of a retail park in Sunderland, the Great Western park in Glasgow

and Templars retail park in Oxford.

Guillaume Cassou, head of the KKR Europe Real Estate, told City A.M. “While the retail market has been hammered for the past couple of years, we think the situation might be about to stabilise and potentially getting into a phase where the UK economy is rebounding.”

He added that KKR was looking at deals in France and Spain as well as Germany but it was likely the next KKR real estate deals would occur in the UK.

! Europe’s net debt funding gap has reduced by 42 per cent from $86bn (£55bn) to $50bn over the last six months, thanks to a surge in non-bank lending into the commercial property market, DTZ said. In a report published yesterday, the property firm forecasts a surplus of lending for 2013-14 in core markets like the UK and France. It predicts that funds and insurers will provide an estimated $181bn of new lending across Europe over 2013 to 2015.

Intermediate announces exits ! Intermediate Capital Group yesterday said it had exited two of its top 20 investments, netting it millions. It said an A$70m (£43m) mezzanine investment into Hoyts Group made in 2005 had been sold with proceeds totalling A$126m. It also said a €93.75m investment in Team Systems had been exited, netting the company €113.9m. However, it will continue to hold a minority equity investment within the group, it added.

Clearer regulation is a boon for the broking sector INTERDEALER brokers and investors had been sitting on their hands for months awaiting US swaps watchdog the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to finally publish rules regulating clearable swaps. It was worth the wait – the news is good.

The rules, which recently surfaced after lengthy delays, exceeded expectations. From January 2014 all clearable swaps below a certain level will have to go through something called a swap execution facility (SEF) – platforms that will be owned and registered by interdealer brokers themselves.

Swaps are currently traded through a labyrinth of platforms.

BOTTOM LINE MICHAEL BOW With the SEF, this will end.

Standardisation will rule. Given the peculiarities of the swap trading market, and the specific nature of the new rules, demand is likely to flow to established City broking houses who have the expertise and know-how to

make such systems work.

Analysts expect interbank and single dealer platforms to find it difficult to register as SEFs – leaving brokers like Tullett and Icap with the lionshare of the market. Shares went up yesterday in response, a welcome boost for a beleaguered City sector.

There’s no guarantee of this, of course. Other interdealer brokers could emerge with better platforms, and brokers still face headwinds over regulatory investigations into Libor. But the picture is now clearer, finally removing the lack of clarity that investors hated most about the sector.

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FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

Fall in Johnson Matthey profits

BY SUZIE NEUWIRTH JOHNSON Matthey yesterday announced a 13 per cent decline in profits for the year, due to a disappointing performance in its precious metals division.

The FTSE 100-listed chemicals and metals company – which makes catalytic converters – said pre-tax profits had fallen to £354.9m for the year ended 31 March 2013, down from £409.3m the previous year. Precious metals profits plunged 27 per cent to £147m, due to low metal prices and production issues.

However, the company’s share price jumped over six per cent on the news as the decline was smaller than expected.

Recovery in the US auto market meant that catalyst sales in North America rose 12 per cent to £331m this year.

New European legislation comes into force from 1 January 2014 requiring new catalysts for vehicles, which the company says will increase sales in the

ADVISERS MONTAGU CHRIS WRIGHT ROTHSCHILD

Montagu Private Equity once again used the services of Rothschilds, one of the biggest names in corporate advising, to help offload its stake in Hansen. Rothschild, which was appointed in February to help prepare for an exit off the company, originally helped the company in the summer of 2011 to sell Marlow Foods, the manufacturer and distributor of the Quorn branded products to Premier Foods for £172.

Rothschild has also been on the other side of the fence, advising a rival private equity group Lion Capital buy GHD Group from Montagu earlier this year. The sale of Hansen was handled by Rothschild’s team, out of its Manchester office. Heading the M&A team in the north west are Chris Wright and Bod Buckby, who both have experience in private equity M&A.

ANALYST VIEWS

Interviews by Suzie Neuwirth

Johnson Matthey PLC

31 May 3 Jun

“The decline in profits wasn’t as bad as expected and the current slump in metal prices had already been factored in by the market. New European legislation should have a positive effect on sales, although the Eurozone recession raises the question of whether there will be much demand for new vehicles.

Decreasing metal prices look set to continue to be a major trend.

CHARLES PICK NUMIS SECURITIES

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ADAM COLLINS LIBERUM CAPITAL

MONTAGU Private Equity, one of the oldest buyout shops in the UK, yesterday cashed out its stake in outdoor clothing company Hansen Protection, two years after carving out the Nordic business in a management buyout.

Montagu, set up in 1968, has sold the business to rival Nordic private equity investor IK Investment Partners after originally taking control in February 2011.

The sale is thought to be worth around €150m-€160m, two times the firm’s original stake.

Montagu, which also owns waste management company Biffa,

took on Hansen after it was separated from the Helly Hansen group, the maker of outdoor wear beloved of skiers.

The newly formed group, renamed Hansen Protection from Helly Hansen Pro, focused on providing specialist survival suits which need to be worn in extreme weather conditions.

Montagu backed the buyout with cash from the third fund it had raised. It raised a fourth fund in 2011.

Director Anthony Greensmith said: “Our partnership with Hansen Protection has been very productive and we are delighted with the company’s growth since our investment.”

Hansen Protection was split from Helly Hansen group that makes skiing clothes

Fastjet brushes off accountant New Meggitt concern to hail strong trading finance head

BY MARION DAKERS AIM-LISTED airline Fastjet yesterday said it had enjoyed its best ever month of trading in May as revenues soared.

The confident update came less than a week after Fastjet’s accountants raised concerns about the firm’s ability to continue trading as a going concern.

Fastjet said revenues are up 50 per cent since the start of the year in Tanzania, while turnover in Ghana has risen 25 per cent since the same time a year ago.

“Simply put, we are carrying more passengers, enjoying increased yields and an ever improving level of dispatch reliability in each of these

operations,” said chief executive Ed Winter in a statement.

The firm was set up in 2011, when software firm-turnedinvestment vehicle Rubicon bought several aviation assets across Africa.

Last Friday after the markets closed, Fastjet released results for the 18 months to the end of 2012 that detailed a string of regulatory delays, a net loss of $56m (£35.8m) and KPMG’s concerns that “material uncertainty” cast doubt on the company’s prospects.

Fastjet’s spokespeople did not return a call for comment yesterday.

Shares in Fastjet closed up 0.4p, or 60.5 per cent, at 1.08p yesterday.

”

“The results are slightly ahead of expectations and analysts will probably amend their estimates for next year. The weaker pound against the dollar has also provided a modest upgrade. The company remains very confident about the impact of new regulations in Europe and although this is not a new story, it is coming closer and people are paying more attention to it.

Montagu Private Equity ships out from sea clothing firm

BY MICHAEL BOW

”

“The rate of decline in the fourth quarter was far less than in the third and second quarters. Furthermore, the company had previously predicted that the second half would be the same as the first half, but the second half is already ahead. Growth is expected to accelerate into 2014-15 and beyond, which is particularly bullish bearing in mind the Anglo

2,750.00 6 Jun

WHY DID THE MARKET REACT SO POSITIVELY TO JOHNSON MATTHEY’S RESULTS?

DAVID MADDEN IG GROUP

sector three or four-fold. Upcoming legislation in China and India is also expected to boost growth.

But an amended contract with Anglo Platinum will weigh down on future revenues. “Overall, we expect that the group will make steady progress in 2013-14 notwithstanding the loss of revenue from Anglo Platinum,” said chief executive Neil Carson.

The firm’s share price closed up 6.34 per cent at £27.50 yesterday.

2,850 p 2,800 2,750 2,700 2,650 2,600 2,550

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BY SUZIE NEUWIRTH DEFENCE equipment and aircraft parts maker Meggitt yesterday announced that Doug Webb has been appointed as chief financial officer with immediate effect.

He replaces Stephen Young, who was promoted to chief executive on 1 May after Terry Twigger’s retirement.

Webb most recently held the role of chief financial officer of the London Stock Exchange. He previously worked at IT firm Logica and defence technology company QinetiQ. He is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and holds an MA in Geography and Management Sciences from Cambridge University.

”

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IN BRIEF Exploration success at Polymetal ! FTSE 100-listed miner Polymetal International yesterday announced drilling results for a Russian development project which it thinks will materially change the project’s scope. “I am very excited about the recent exploration results at Mamin. I don’t remember seeing such wide and rich intersections at relatively shallow depth since 2008,” commented chief executive Vitaly Nesis. “I expect further exploration success at Mamin and expect that this project can be very attractive given its location and access to infrastructure.”

Output up 78pc at Amerisur field ! Oil and gas explorer Amerisur Resources yesterday announced improved results in Colombia and Paraguay. The South Americafocused firm has increased production at its Colombian Platanillo field from over 4,000 to 7,100 barrels of oil per day. “For us, this 77.5 per cent rise in volumes reinforces the operational and logistical performance of [Amerisur] against a challenging backdrop,” said broker Investec. Chief executive John Wardle said: “This is a very strong endorsement of the geological model and bodes well for the wells to the north.”

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Half a million sign up for EE’s 4G contracts as it plans expansion

BY HELENA BALL EE SAID yesterday that more than 500,000 people had signed up to its 4G contracts since their launch seven months ago, as it unveiled new plans to expand the service.

The largest UK mobile network company, which is parent to Orange and T-Mobile, will launch the UK’s first shared mobile and tablet data plans, in an attempt to build on its position as the first network

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NEWS

provider to offer 4G. Telecom regulator Ofcom granted EE clearance for its 4G mobile airways last October, giving it a lead of more than eight months against rivals. O2 and Vodafone are expected to roll out their own high speed networks later this summer.

EE also said yesterday that its 4G data transfer speeds will more than double to 80 megabits per second (Mbps) from the current average of 24-30 Mbps, making it easier for

RHUBARB TO RUN WALKIE TALKIE’S SKY GARDEN

customers to watch HD video streams and share large files. It will also be available on pay-as-you-go contracts. The update will be rolled out in London and nine other UK cities. The firm will also continue to expand its 4G coverage and expects to reach 55 per cent of the UK population by the end of the month and 98 per cent by the end of 2014.

EE said it will announce the pricing scheme and availability of its new plans in the coming weeks.

OWNERS of London’s Walkie Talkie tower on 20 Fenchurch Street yesterday secured a deal with Royal Ascot caterer Rhubarb to design and operate the Sky Garden (pictured) on the highest floors which will feature several restaurants amid the landscaped gardens.

WPP joins up with Twitter in data share deal

BY HARRY BANKS WPP, the world’s largest advertising agency has combined forces with Twitter as it aims to better focus advertising by using consumer data.

The strategic partnership, announced yesterday, means that WPP and its agencies such as GroupM and Kantar, will use Twitter’s data trove to gain insight into customer behaviour to pinpoint where to spend its advertising dollars.

WPP said the partnership would focus on data and analytics. The advertising firm plans to integrate data posted by Twitter users into its various marketing products to provide better insights into consumer behaviour.

The move by WPP follows a similar agreement between Twitter and rival advertising agency Starcom MediaVest Group, part of Publicis Groupe, less than two months ago, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The decision comes despite WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell saying just four months ago that

Twitter – which only allows messages of 140-characters – “reduces communication to superficialities and lacks depth”.

At the time, he argued that Twitter was more useful for public relations, than advertising.

However, yesterday Sorrell said that Twitter’s relevance was expanding.

“Not only as a social platform, but also as a window into consumer attitudes and behaviour in real time,” Sorrell added.

Chief executive officer of Twitter Dick Costolo, said he was excited about the partnership.

“As Twitter has grown, marketers are leveraging the platform for brand insights, relevant real-time messaging, and customer research. This partnership will benefit clients by pairing Twitter with WPP’s world-class analytics, targeting, and creative capabilities,” he added.

With more than 200m users, Twitter has made serious efforts in recent months to court Madison Avenue as a means to boost its revenue to better compete with rivals Facebook and Google.

NYSE Euronext FRC drops rule fault hits trade on forecasting

BY JAMES WATERSON TRADING on leading European stock exchanges was delayed by an hour yesterday morning after NYSE Euronext encountered technical difficulties.

The Paris, Brussels, Lisbon, and Amsterdam markets were unable to place orders at 8am UK time as scheduled and traders instead had to wait until 9am for the system to spring back to life. Euronext said it was investigating the cause of the glitch, which affected stocks, bonds, and some derivatives.

BY CITY A.M. REPORTER THE FINANCIAL Reporting Council (FRC) yesterday backed down on a plan to require auditors to make long-term predictions about whether companies will stay in business, after the industry complained the move was impractical.

The FRC alarmed accountants in January with plans to force them to say whether they were confident a company had enough resources to keep going for the foreseeable future, a major extension of auditors’ existing obligations.

cityam.com

FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

CITYA.M. AWARDS2013

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City A.M. launches annual awards for 2013

BY DAVID HELLIER City A.M. is today launching its fourth annual awards. The event, which celebrates those who have helped put the City of London at the centre of the world’s financial markets, will take place on 13 November at the Grange Hotel near St Paul’s.

The event has already become a much anticipated occasion in the City calendar, where senior decisionmakers from all parts of the financial industry look forward to

meeting and sharing their experiences as the winners are unveiled.

“I’m delighted to be launching our fourth annual awards,” said City A.M. editor Allister Heath.

“I think most people agree that in a very short space of time we have established a much loved event that is already one of the highlights of the City calendar.

“I am very pleased on this occasion to welcome Lexus back again as our headline sponsor.”

Last year’s awards were made memorable by a rousing introductory speech from Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, and there was a Personality of the Year award for Lord Sebastian Coe following his immense achievements in putting the London Olympics together.

Today we are launching the entry process for those of you who want to apply for the awards or nominate an individual or a business. All applications will be considered by the editorial team, who then select a

short-list that will be published in the newspaper. The final decision is taken by a panel of judges (see below right), who will meet ahead of the ceremony to choose this year’s winners.

Lexus is sponsoring the Personality of the Year category as well as the Innovative Company of the Year award. Paul Marshall, general manager of marketing and strategy at Lexus, said that he saw the association with the awards as “an excellent opportunity for Lexus to associate

itself with the best individuals and companies in the City”.

There will be awards in 14 categories up for grabs. Many City businesses have already reserved tables for what has become a truly uplifting occasion.

Don’t miss it this year. Tables of 10 cost £2,750 plus VAT. Finally, an already powerful judging panel has been enhanced this year by the introduction for the first time of Xavier Rolet and PWC’s Ian Powell.

Welcome on board. For more details go to www.cityamawards.com.

MEET THIS YEAR’S JUDGING PANEL

Boris Johnson lifted spirits at last year’s event with a tub-thumping speech about London

ALLISTER HEATH

Allister, editor of City A.M., chairs the judging session. Last year’s session lasted nearly two hours and was notable for its lively and good humoured debate. Allister holds the casting vote if our judges are tied.

DAVID HELLIER

David, City A.M.’s deputy editor, has helped select the distinguished panel. In putting the group together he has ensured the members are exceptionally experienced and knowledgeable.

ALISON CARNWATH

Alison, a former investment banker at Schroders, has since taken up a number of directorships. She is chair of Land Securities and on the board of Man Group and Zurich.

NIGEL BOARDMAN

Nigel is one of the City’s best known corporate lawyers. He joined Slaughter & May, where he remains a partner, in 1973, and has worked with most of the big companies at one time or another.

SIMON BORROWS

Simon returns to the judging panel after a two year absence following his career change, which took him from being an investment banker at Greenhill to chief executive at the private equity giant 3i.

SIR ROGER CARR

Sir Roger is one of the UK’s best known businessmen, and is currently president of the CBI, the employers’ group. He is also chairman of Centrica and a senior independent director of the Court of the Bank of England.

KATHERINE GARRETT-COX

Katherine was appointed chief executive of Britain’s largest investment trust, Alliance Trust, in 2008. She has enjoyed a 21 year career in the investment industry, starting out as a portfolio manager at Hill Samuel.

SIMON MACKENZIE-SMITH

Simon joins us on the panel for the third year in a row. As chairman of investment banking for Bank of America Merrill Lynch in the UK and Ireland he’s spearheaded dozens of deals.

IAN POWELL

Ian also joins the panel for the first time this year and we warmly welcome him on board. Ian was elected chairman and senior partner of the UK firm of PwC in 2008 and re-elected for a second term in 2012.

PHIL RAPER

Phil is head of UK equity capital markets and chairman of corporate broking at Goldman Sachs. He joined the firm in 2000 and was named managing director in the same year.

Broadcaster Katie Derham directed proceedings

XAVIER ROLET

Ilya Kondrashov, director of MarketInvoice, receives his award

PICTURES: LAURA LEAN/CITY AM

Xavier needs no introduction to readers of this newspaper. He’s chief executive of the London Stock Exchange and joins the panel for the first time this year.

ROLAND RUDD

There can be few better connected people than Roland, who is the cofounder of RLM Finsbury, the City’s top financial public relations firm.

Roland was recently polled as the City’s most influential PR man.

SIR MARTIN SORRELL

Sir Martin returns to the panel after an absence of one year. He’s chief executive of WPP, one of the world’s largest advertising groups.

20

cityam.com

FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

NEWS

Small firms set to get a break from red tape

BY TIM WALLACE FIRMS with up to 50 staff will soon be exempt from the most troublesome new red tape as the government yesterday expanded the scheme to cover more businesses.

Any new regulation will not cover small firms if it is deemed to place a disproportionate burden on them, holding back growth, the Department for Business Innovation and Growth (BIS) said.

And if the rules are absolutely essential, SMEs will be given extra time to comply.

The freeze initially covered those with under 10 employees, but has been expanded to cut businesses’ costs and encourage them to grow.

It points to previous suc-

cesses of the scheme, for example exempting those with under 250 staff from the right to request time to train, a move which saved firms £388m.

“We all want faster growth. As Britain recovers, small businesses are leading the generation of ideas, the creation of new jobs and the shift towards a balanced economy,” said business minister Michael Fallon.

“We cannot afford to hold them back with more rules and regulations.”

Business groups welcomed the plan.

“Regulation disproportionately affects smaller businesses which lack specialist resources to manage it, so this extension to the moratorium will help free up more of these firms to focus on growth,” said Hayley Conboy from the Confederation of British Industry.

Business minister Michael Fallon says he wants faster growth

IN BRIEF 3D printing gets £15m from state ! UK businesses have been awarded £14.7m to develop projects that take advantage of pioneering 3D printing technology. Business secretary Vince Cable said the government would put in £8.4m, alongside an additional £6.3m of private investment. The funding will help businesses to develop new uses for the technology in healthcare and energy, such as facial implants for patients who have suffered head injuries and personalised components for hip replacements.

Canada charges Nestle and Mars Lord Dear, a former chief constable, said he wants to protect “teachers and registrars”

Labour peers fear last minute plot to derail gay marriage law

BY JAMES WATERSON LABOUR peers are convinced opponents of same sex marriage bill will attempt to wreck the draft law when it returns to the chamber later this month, according to emails seen by City A.M. Lord Alli has written to fellow Labour members of the upper house to claim that Lord Dear, a leading opponent of the bill, “has asked for his supporters to be ready” on 17 June to vote for the removal of clause one from the legislation.

This clause includes the crucial statement that “marriage of same sex couples is lawful”.

A separate email sent to Labour

peers says: “We are aware that Lord Dear is intending to put down an amendment to oppose Clause 1 of the Bill. This is likely to come fairly early on Monday 17th.”

Yesterday Lord Dear, who failed to stop the bill at second reading, said he is “most definitely not doing” what is described in the emails.

“The next stage is to go the other way, be very mature about it and see what can be done in committee,” he explained, citing issues involving divorce, artificial insemination, and protecting the beliefs of teachers.

But one peer who opposes the bill said clause one could be targeted later at report stage if concessions are not made during committee.

! Canada has charged two of the world’s biggest chocolate makers, Nestle and Mars, with colluding to fix the price of chocolate, the Canadian competition watchdog said yesterday. Canada’s Competition Bureau recommended lenient treatment for the Canadian arm of Hershey, which cooperated with the investigation. Hershey said it would plead guilty to one count of price fixing. Mars and Nestle said they intend to “vigorously defend” themselves against the allegations.

US cracks down on online betting ! US regulators yesterday charged a Cyprusbased company with illegally selling financial contracts to US clients, the latest crackdown on online betting after Dublin-based Intrade was forced to cease trading. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission both filed lawsuits against Banc de Binary, saying it offered investments known as binary options that enable investors to bet on market prices and preyed on investors with modest means.

London and south east leave CITYAMCAREERS.com UK behind on job prospects Find your next step at

BY MICHAEL BIRD

Transport for London Public Notice ROAD TRAFFIC REGULATION ACT 1984

THE A10 GLA ROAD (BISHOPSGATE, CITY OF LONDON) (TEMPORARY BANNED TURN) ORDER 2013 1. Transport for London hereby gives notice that it intends to make the above named Traffic Order under section 14(1) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 for the purpose specified in paragraph 2. The effect of the Order is summarised in paragraph 3.

2. The purpose of the Order is to enable manhole cover replacement works to take place at A10 Bishopsgate.

3. The effect of the Order will be to prohibit any vehicle from turning right from the southbound carriageway of A10 Bishopsgate into Wormwood Street.

The Order will be effective at certain times from 8.00 AM on the 22nd June 2013 until 10.00 PM on the 14th July 2013 or when the works have been completed whichever is the sooner. The prohibition will apply only during such times and to such extent as shall from time to time be indicated by traffic signs.

4. The prohibition will not apply in respect of: (1) any vehicle being used for the purposes of those works or for fire brigade, ambulance or police purposes; (2) anything done with the permission or at the direction of a police constable in uniform or a person authorised by Transport for London.

5. At such times as the prohibition is in force an alternative route will be indicated by traffic signs via Camomile Street eastbound, Hounsditch, St Botholph Street, Aldgate High Street, Duke’s Place, Bevis Marks and Camomile Street westbound to normal route of travel.

Dated this 7th day of June 2013 Roger Pye Forward Planning Manager, Transport for London Palestra, 197 Blackfriars Road, London, SE1 8NJ

MAYOR OF LONDON

OPTIMISM about the jobs market increased in May, with London and the south east seeing the biggest improvement in sentiment, according to Lloyds.

The bank’s survey of 2,000 consumers across the UK indicated that the outlook is still negative about employment, but less so than in the first quarter. 53 per cent were negative about jobs, while 16 per cent were positive.

Those surveyed in the south east and London were more positive than anywhere else in the

country, with the north east lagging furthest behind.

The index has proved to be a good indicator of the job market in general, and has been closely correlated with the employment statistics recorded by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the past.

Job security remained the same as April’s reading, with 18 per cent more positive about their position in the past year, and 30 per cent more negative.

The survey asks about inflation, which reveal that most people still believe prices

will rise over the year. 75 per cent predict an increase, 20 per cent that they will remain the same, and only five per cent believe they will fall.

Employment prospects are looking up % bal 2.5 % Year-on-year 2.0 ONS employment 1.5 (Left) 1.0 0.5 0.0 -0.5 -1.0 -1.5 Consumer Barometer -2.0 job prospects (Right) -2.5 May 2007

JAN 2010

0 -10 -20 -30 -40 -50 -60 -70 -80 -90 -100

May 2013

Unemployment rises further Irish jobless in Greece as crisis continues rate at 13.7pc

BY MICHAEL BIRD THE NUMBER of jobless people in Greece is still rising, hitting a record high of 26.8 per cent in March, according to statistics released yesterday.

There are now 1.31m people unemployed in the struggling economy, with the number of people in work falling by nearly 250,000 since the previous March.

Unemployment has more than tripled in the last five years.

Young people are still being hit hard by the country’s depression, with 58.3 per cent of 15-25 year olds jobless and looking for work. The news came on the same day that

the IMF admitted that their approach to 2010’s Greek bailout was flawed.

French unemployment also ticked up, rising from 10.5 per cent in the last quarter of 2012 to 10.8 per cent in the first month of this year. The country officially entered recession again in May. One report released yesterday predicted a more pronounced recession for the euro area. PWC dropped its estimated growth for the currency union from -0.4 per cent to -0.6 per cent in 2013. It forecast that the European Central Bank (ECB) decision to lower interest rates to 0.5 per cent in May, would have limited impact.

BY CITY A.M. REPORTER IRELAND’S unemployment rate was 13.7 per cent in May, unchanged from April's downwardly revised figure, while the number of people claiming jobless benefit inched lower, data from the Central Statistics Office showed.

Unemployment benefit claimants fell 700 to a seasonally adjusted 426,100 last month. The unemployment rate in April was revised down to 13.7 percent from a provisional figure of 14 per cent a month earlier. Economists expect the number of claims to fall further.

cityam.com

FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS Brewin Dolphin

Sberbank CIB

ING Investment Management Jerry Brewin and Marcelo Assalin have joined the investment

Sberbank’s corporate and investment banking division has made two new hires. Francois Mantion joins as head of commodity trading and a managing director from JP Morgan, where he was global head of energy market risk. Raymond Bird, who joins as head of strategy equity financing and a

managing director, was most recently head of structured equity financing in RBS’s Hong Kong office.

chief information officer, was most recently global head of IT cost management at Lloyds Banking Group.

Chadbourne & Parke

Debevoise & Plimpton

The law firm has appointed Adrian Mecz as managing partner in its London office. He joined the firm in 2005 from Denton Wilde Sapte.

Richard Lawton has joined the law firm’s London office as an international counsel. He was previously a senior associate in the litigation team at Herbert Smith Freehills.

Aldermore

Alma Consulting Group

The bank has announced two new appointments. Mark Stephens, who joined Aldermore in 2009 as deputy chief executive of its mortgages division, will become group commercial director. Paul Johnson, who has been appointed

The research and development (R&D) tax specialists have hired Jennifer Tragner as production director. She is a chartered accountant and qualified tax technician, and joins from KPMG, where she was a tax manager in its R&D tax relief team.

To appear in CITYMOVES please email your career updates and pictures to citymoves@cityam.com

21S T JUNE 21ST A T THE GRAN GE AT GRANGE TOWER BRI DGE H OTEL BRIDGE HOTEL

IIN N PAR PARTNERSHIP TNERSHIP WITH WITH

US private equity firm Carlyle plans to convert 88 St James’s into eight luxury flats

Carlyle to turn Mayfair office into luxury flats

BY KASMIRA JEFFORD

CARLYLE Group, the US private equity firm, has won planning permission from Westminster City Council to convert a former office block in London’s St James’s district into eight super prime apartments.

The news is the latest sign of a resurgence in activity in the conservative upmarket district, which has seen relatively little development over the past few decades compared to other West End postcodes.

It also comes after the Crown Estate last week announced a £320m tie-up with Canada’s Oxford Properties to fund the first phase of a massive overhaul of St James’s Market.

The Grade II-listed building at 88 St James’s Street, was originally built as offices for insurance broker Alliance Assurance Company in 1904, and was acquired by Carlyle last year from the Crown Estate for £36.5m.

The deal marked a rare opportunity for an outside investor to buy into the highly sought after area, which combined with Mayfair commands some

21

Edited by Annabel Palmer

management company as head of emerging market debt (EMD) and lead portfolio manager for local currency respectively. Brewin was most recently head of EMD at Aviva Investors. Assalin was previously at ING US Investment Management, where he was senior vice president and head of EMD sovereign debt.

The investment management firm has announced the appointment of David Howard as chief administration officer. Howard joins from Williams de Broe, where he was chief operating officer. Prior to that, he was UK chief operating officer at Insinger de Beaufort.

NEWS

of the highest rents in Europe for commercial and residential property.

Knight Frank holds the record for selling in St James’s, with a penthouse selling for £4,452 per square foot in May 2012.

St James’s has been home to aristocracy since King Charles II allowed the park land to be developed in the 1660s.

The area is home to hedge-funds and private banks such as Rothschild, the Ritz hotel, and a host of established gentlemen clubs such as Boodles.

Mark Harris, Carlyle’s managing director said: “This is an exciting period for this historic and internationally renowned area and our proposed scheme will create residences befitting this royal part of prime central London.”

Carlyle has hired Caraeno as development manager, whose founder Mark Cherry oversaw the development of The Lancaster’s, the luxury flats near Hyde Park in his former role as director of property firm Minerva.

The pair plan to build flats ranging from 1,000 sq ft to 10,000 sq ft, with work due to start in the autumn.

Lex van Dam, creator of the BBC TV show Million Dollar Traders and an online trading academy, will be taking to the stage to share his insights.

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Lex van Dam

Hampstead Capital

CITYDASHBOARD LONDON REPORT

FTSE drops to a six-week low as ECB disappoints B

cityam.com

FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

22

RITAIN’S leading shares slipped to six-week lows yesterday, breaking below a support level after the European Central Bank (ECB) signalled it was in no hurry to offer more stimulus to the country’s top trading partner.

Stocks fell after ECB President Mario Draghi said there was no immediate need to introduce negative deposit rates for banks, while the idea of taking asset-backed securities as collateral was a long-term proposition.

“There are really two key points that we are disappointed with. The first one is that he feels the economy doesn’t need negative rates right now and secondly there was some hope that he might discuss the option of asset backed securities, and that seems a long way away,” said James Butterfill, equity strategist at Coutts.

The FTSE 100 index, which had been broadly steady before Draghi’s speech, closed down 83.20 points or 1.3 per cent at 6,336.11 points – its weakest finish in a month and a half .

The slump, which follows on from a steep retreat on Wednesday, pushed the index through a key technical support area marked by the 100-day moving average at 6,410.49 points and the psychologically key 6,400 level.

“It opens up the way for a bigger correction and you could see the 6,320 level,” said Brenda Kelly, analyst at IG. Easyjet was one of the biggest fallers, off 4.1 per cent, with the sector hit by growing unrest in popular holiday destination Turkey. Some investors also used a monthly trading update by the

budget airline to take profit on what has been the fifth biggest gainer on the FTSE 100 over the past three months.

“It wasn’t as strong a monthly update as we expected,” said Alexia Dogani, analyst at Liberum Capital.

“It has done extremely well especially in the past couple of months so any piece of in-line news, people take it as an opportunity to take some profit.”

Barclays shares fell 4.1 per cent to 303.3p, hurt by the revelation that Nomura was placing 84.5m Barclays’ shares on the market at 308.5p on behalf of a client.

Activity overall was subdued – at around 90 per cent of the 90-day daily average – with many investors unwilling to take positions ahead of Friday’s US non-farm payrolls report.

With recent market weakness fuelled by concerns that the US Federal Reserve could soon begin to unwind its monetary stimulus, a weak employment report could benefit equities by reducing the chances of such a move, traders and analysts said.

FTSE

6,336.11

6,700 6,650 6,600 6,550 6,500 6,450 6,400 6,350

6 Jun

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502.00

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6 Jun

520 515 510 505 31 May

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THE RESTAURANT GROUP

Jefferies upgraded its price target for the owner of Frankie & Benny’s restaurants to 575p from 500p and maintains a “buy” recommendation. The broker backs a valuation premium as the group outperforms the sector in high returns, growth rate, and balance sheet strength.

Polymetal International PLC

675.50

720 p

6 Jun

710 700 690 680 31 May

3 Jun

4 Jun

5 Jun

6 Jun

POLYMETAL

Cannacord Genuity reiterates its “buy” rating and a target price of 920p for the precious metals miner. The broker thinks the firm’s recent “impressive” high-grade gold intercept findings positively impact its Maminskoye development project in Russia.

Kingfisher PLC

336.80

355.0 p 352.5 350.0 347.5 345.0 342.5 340.0 337.5 31 May

6 Jun

3 Jun

4 Jun

5 Jun

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KINGFISHER

31 May 3 Jun

4 Jun

5 Jun

6 Jun

Numis Securities downgraded the B&Q parent company to “hold” from “add” with a target price of 370p. Despite the firm’s strong fundamentals, the broker points out that a recent share rally has closed a valuation discount to the sector.

NEW YORK REPORT Cheer returns to Wall St as stocks surge

U

S stocks rose yesterday, with the Dow swinging nearly 200 points from its session low to high and the S&P 500 recovering after hitting a key technical level in volatile trading a day before the release of the US jobs report.

Market volatility has increased recently and the S&P 500 has lost 3 per cent since Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s comments two weeks ago that the central bank may decide to reduce stimulus in the next few policy meetings if data shows the economy is improving.

The move follows a rally for much of this year, largely on the Fed’s continued stimulus actions.

Around midday, the S&P 500 briefly slipped below its 50-day moving average of 1,604 – the first time the benchmark has dropped below that technical level since 18 April. By mid-afternoon, the S&P reversed course and ended the day up 0.9 per cent. The session’s best performers included financials and health care, with each of those S&P sector indexes ending up 1.4 per cent.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 80.03 points, or 0.53 per cent, to close at 15,040.62. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index advanced 13.66 points, or 0.85 per cent, to finish at 1,622.56. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 22.58 points, or 0.66 per cent, to end at 3,424.05.

American Express was among the Dow’s top gainers, rising 2 per cent to $76.24. Retail stocks rose, with major US chains reporting monthly sales that were largely in line with expectations. Shares of Costco Wholesale rose 1.8 per cent to $111.09, while the S&P retail index shot up 1.2 per cent.

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FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

24

THEFORUM

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Ed Miliband’s vision for future Labour welfare policies fell apart in the detail I N HIS speech in east London yesterday, Ed Miliband hoped to reframe the debate by outlining a distinctively Labour approach to welfare policy. Distinctive perhaps but, from a policy perspective it can only really be described as a mixed bag.

On the positive side, Miliband rightly pointed out that “the welfare state, through housing benefit, bears the cost for our failure to build enough homes”.

His suggestion that “any attempt to control housing benefit costs, which fails to build more homes, is destined to fail” is also correct, because this is precisely what is happening in Britain today.

The coalition has been tinkering with the formula for setting housing benefit rates since it took office, and yet the bill is still soaring – to the £23bn annual figure reported in the 2013 Budget. And how could it be otherwise? The skyrocketing cost of housing benefit is purely a consequence of rapidly rising housing costs. As long as the latter is not addressed, no amount of coalition formula-shuffling will bring housing benefit spending down to reasonable levels.

Agree? Disagree? Got a sharp comment?

The Forum wants you to join the debate.

KRISTIAN NIEMIETZ

But the obvious question is why so few new homes have been built in Britain for so long, when the demand is clearly there. Miliband’s answer was underwhelming. He jumped directly to “tackling private landlords” and building more public housing. The Labour leader seems to assume that only governments can provide homes for their citizens.

But why have countries like Switzerland and Germany, where public housing is not nearly as extensive as in the UK, had much higher rates of housing completions for decades? Why are house prices in those countries now lower, in real terms, than they were 20 years ago, while British house prices are more than twice as high?

Crucially, those countries have

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allowed the private sector to respond to consumer demand. There is no need for the government to be involved in building houses – no more than it needs to be involved in baking bread or brewing beer. All it needs to do is allow developers to do their job, rather than restrain them through draconian planning regulations. That, however, would require taking on the Nimbys, which Miliband does not seem to have the courage to do.

Miliband’s plea for a strengthening of the contributory principle within the welfare system was also welcome. But his claim that “without spending extra money, we can change the system” is strange. In principle, there are two ways in which contributory aspects can be strengthened. The system can be made more generous for those with a strong contributory record, or less generous for those without a strong contributory record (or both). If the former is chosen – and that is the only one that Miliband considered – of course, these changes will require additional spending.

A contributory system may well be more cost-effective in the long run,

on the web: cityam.com/forum

because it would provide better work incentives. Under the current system, national insurance contributions are simply a second income tax; under a contributory system, they could become more like a quasi-investment. But until these effects unfold, such changes would require an upfront investment.

Miliband’s claim to the contrary is implausible.

Most interestingly, Miliband offered support for a compulsory work programme, where long-term unemployed would be given a subsidised job or work placement that they would have to accept. If he is serious about this, it would be an almost revolutionary change. It would represent a workfare programme of sorts – and one that went much further than the coalition’s feeble steps. But would the Labour Party really be prepared to apply sanctions to those who refuse to work? Or would Miliband include so many ifs and buts that the programme became a toothless tiger?

The compulsory job guarantee is a proposal worth watching, but it was also the part of Miliband’s speech where he

or by email: theforum@cityam.com

was most stingy on the details.

Finally, Miliband’s proposed overall cap on social expenditure – which has won most of the headlines – can only really be seen as a symbolic commitment. What does it mean in practice?

What would happen if social spending was on the way to exceed this upper limit? Unless there are mechanisms to decrease welfare spending automatically in such a situation, and Miliband did not mention any, this supposed cap would be as ineffective as the Eurozone’s attempts to limit European government deficits through its Maastricht criteria.

Presumably, embracing the cap is a more roundabout way of saying “we recognise the importance of fiscal prudence”.

The most generous interpretation of Miliband’s foray into welfare policy is that it was meant to signal a U-turn away from Labour’s previous record of unrestrained spending. Hopefully, it was not meant to be taken at face value, and we can expect more detail to come.

Kristian Niemietz is poverty research fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs.

Top responses will be reprinted in The Forum.

Monte Carlo or bust: Innovators willing to stake it all on heroic works of genius

I

DO NOT travel to find comfortable, rich, and hospitable people, or clear sky,” wrote the American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. “But if there were any magnet that would point to the countries and the houses where are the persons who are intrinsically rich and powerful, I would sell all, and buy it, and put myself on the road today.”

I’ve come to Monaco, for the Ernst and Young World Entrepreneur of the Year awards. Here I’m lucky enough to find some of the world’s top business innovators collected together. The setting is notable for comfort and clear skies – but as Emerson understood, it’s the presence of brilliant people, not just

THE LONG VIEW MARC SIDWELL the sunlight glinting off harboured yachts, that makes the experience dazzling.

These awards give a rare day in the sun to the struggle involved in building a successful business. Over the last three years, as the global economy faltered, this year’s 49 finalists collectively doubled their revenues to $40bn (£26bn) and

expanded their headcount by 40 per cent to over 200,000. Famous or not, these are some of the world’s greatest innovation stories – from Spain’s Grupo Codorniu, the world’s largest producer of cava, still improving after four and a half centuries in business, to Banco BASE, recognised as one of Mexico’s best forex traders.

It’s good to see that the UK too has a place of honour in this global showcase: Michael Spencer took home the title of world entrepreneur of the year in 2010 for Icap. This year’s UK contender is Lance Uggla, chief executive of Markit. Uggla founded the financial information firm in 2001, and in just over a decade has built it from a St Albans

barn to a giant with more than 2,800 employees and offices in 22 countries.

The truth of running a business is not about champagne and glittering receptions. It is about the courage to take risks, the ingenuity to bring an idea to life and the dedication and adaptability to make it a commercial success. Such an undertaking involves working in the dark: for long hours, with limited information. It involves a endless struggle between the driving vision of an innovator and the institutional inertia that every successful firm develops. Success in such endeavours is heroic. It reminds us what is possible with guts, dedication and skill. And it does more: it brings a

steady, peaceful revolution of the world for the better. The tireless work of entrepreneurs brings us the new goods and services we want, creates jobs and grows the economy.

Emerson also wrote that “in every work of genius we recognise our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”

This gala of entrepreneurial success should be a rebuke to that side of the UK beginning to swap welcoming business and celebrating private innovation for a suspicion of corporate tax arrangements and a commitment to unsustainable state spending. If we want a better world, we have to build it.

Marc Sidwell is managing editor at City A.M.

TGIFLY

FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

25

WE WANT TO HEAR YOUR VIEWS E: theforum@cityam.com | Comment: cityam.com/forum |

LETTERS to the editor

Let developers build

[Re: First time buyers flock to the market, yesterday] While the housebuilding industry is no doubt in recovery mode, the biggest barrier to meeting the housing needs of a growing population is ingrained opposition to development. Last year’s planning reforms appear to be having some modest impact, but to build the 250,000 new homes we desperately need, more needs to be done. Economists are right that government schemes, like Help to Buy, interfere with the market. But they do not take into account that the reason these are required is because the market is already dysfunctional. Planning policy thwarts development, hindering the supply of new homes. Undersupply pushes up prices. Developers would welcome a normalised system, where

BEST OF TWITTER increased supply could lower demand and contain prices, as this would lower the values land is currently commanding. I want to double the number of homes I’m building in the next three to five years, but I can only do that if planning authorities and local communities support new homes. Less than 10 per cent of England’s surface area is developed, so we need to get over the mentality that our green and pleasant land is under siege. If we don’t want a generation of young people excluded from home ownership, we need to start seeing development as an opportunity, not a threat.

Bob Weston, chairman and managing director, Weston Homes Plc

UK picking up, but MPC keeps policy at most stimulative ever. Challenge of tightening passed to Carney regime. @asentance Could Miliband tell us once why Labour did none of the things he is proposing in its 13 years in office? @claire4devizes Every post-war Labour government has left office with higher unemployment than when it got in. How does that reconcile with the “party of work”? @RyanCPS If you’re wondering why your childcare bills are so high, have a word with Nick Clegg. @GABaines

Should London be concerned about the EU’s proposal to move Libor oversight to Paris?

YES

Michael Mainelli This week’s proposal from the EU garnered headlines like “EU plots to grab control of Libor from London”. Such sensationalism simultaneously leads to over-reaction and under-reaction. Libor is a known problem, but there are questions over other market indices for oil, steel, gold and other commodities.

Five years into financial crises, why shouldn’t the EU set out guidelines for robust indices upon which most markets depend? Yet I worry about state control and auditing of benchmarks. Some bankers claim they connived with regulators on Libor to look stronger than they were. Instead I would suggest a more “English” approach – a published standard on index governance and management, independently audited on quality, accuracy, timeliness and distribution in a competitive market. And the under-reaction? These financial reform proposals should be coming from London. If we’re losing our intellectual leadership, perhaps we do deserve to lose the “L” in Libor.

Professor Michael Mainelli is chairman of Z/Yen Group.

NO

Sharon Bowles This is not just about Libor. EU standards for benchmarks are being created that would cover Libor, Euribor and a host of other benchmarks. The suggestion is that, when the contributors are from more than one member state, or where the effects of a mishap are widespread, then there is an oversight role for the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). It’s not too difficult to envisage that the standards for an interbank offered rate end up similar to the UK’s – I am told a lot of “borrowing” of UK work has happened anyway. So, the controversial bit is: should ESMA have a role and how deeply? The ESMA having a role in general is correct due to the EU-wide impact. Participants will probably not be greatly affected. There might be a squabble over fees and the UK feels put out because it has conducted in-depth investigations, unlike the EU or ESMA, and therefore has more experience. But hopefully, there will be ways to smooth over that inconsistency – I can think of amendments already.

Sharon Bowles is Liberal Democrat MEP for South East England.

@cityamforum

Childcare reform could raise costs further after Clegg’s attack on ratios

I

T IS depressing to see education minister Liz Truss’s proposals to relax childcare ratios – which would have allowed nursery staff look after more children – vetoed

by Nick Clegg. He has caved in to an alliance of nursery workers and the ferocious army of Mumsnetters.

It’s not yet clear how Truss will react.

But remember that the ratio proposals were just one part of a policy package that included upgrading the qualifications required to work in childcare. If she persists with this plan, to which Clegg presumably doesn’t object, the coalition will increase costs further (some middle-income working parents already spend a third or more of aftertax earnings on childcare). Thus the final element of the package, the £1,200 a year in tax breaks for parents, will become less adequate, and will lead to pressure for more subsidy.

We need to step back and think what childcare is for. With very young children, and those who are looked after on a part-time basis, we surely do not need the formal structure of pre-school education embodied in the Early Years Foundation Stage. Nor should we have detailed requirements about meal provision and equipment. If some parents want mini-schools of the kind Truss seems to favour, following her recent day trip to France, fine: but they need to pay more for this.

Many parents simply want their small children looked after by competent, caring individuals, whether childminders in their own homes or small crèche-style nurseries. In a large number of cases, this will only be for two or three mornings a week, while mum and dad juggle their work and other commitments. This is not yet Big School, nor do parents want it to be.

Yet all “childcare providers” currently have to jump through the same regulatory hoops, produce the same paper-

LEN SHACKLETON work and undergo the same Ofsted monitoring. This is daft: it has halved the number of registered childminders, driven out perfectly capable and loving carers with limited educational backgrounds or English language skills, and raised costs. To the extent that it has increased unregistered childminding in deprived areas, it may have increased risks to children.

Interestingly, the law trusts well-off types like Clegg – who employ nannies or au pairs – to make their own judgments about who is fit to look after their children. There is no compulsory register or qualification requirements, let alone an early years curriculum to adhere too. And no Ofsted inspector turns up to see if the children are eating up their greens. When you can afford a nanny, who needs the state?

But if we want to bring down the cost of childcare, we must make it much easier for individuals and businesses to enter the field – not more difficult as Truss now seems to want.

Subject to basic criminal records bureau (CRB) and safety checks, we should let childcare providers compete to produce alternative types of care, with or without a curriculum, with different hours, different types of staff, in different types of premises. And we should give back to parents the responsibility for seeing that the option they choose is appropriate for their and their children’s needs. Can Mumsnet really object to this?

Len Shackleton is professor of economics at the University of Buckingham.

4th Floor, 33 Queen Street, Distribution helpline Editorial Editor Allister Heath | Deputy Editor David Hellier | Managing Editor Marc Sidwell London, EC4R 1BR News Editor Elizabeth Fournier | Business Features Editor Tom Welsh | Lifestyle Editor Steve Dinneen | Sports Editor Frank Dalleres If you have any comments about the Tel: 020 3201 8900 distribution of City A.M. Creative Director Gavin Billenness Fax: 020 7248 2711 please ring 0203 201 8955, or email Commercial Sales Director Jeremy Slattery | Commercial Director Harry Owen | Head of Distribution Nick Owen distribution@cityam.com Email: news@cityam.com

Editorial Statement: This newspaper adheres to the system of self-regulation overseen by the Press Complaints Commission. The PCC takes complaints about the editorial content of publications under the Editor’s Code of Practice, a copy of which can be found at www.pcc.org.uk Printed by Trinity Mirror Printing, St Albans Road, Watford Herts, WD24 7RG

DAY

visit cityjet.com Get away for the weekend with a choice of 21 European destinations from London City.

cityam.com

FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

26

LIFE&STYLE GOING OUT FILM

AFTER EARTH

Cert 12a | Charlie McCann

!!"""

POST-APOCALYPTIC adventure After Earth has not got off to a good start. It made just $27m in its opening weekend in the US, coming third behind “Fast and Furious 6�. If even the highly bankable Will Smith can’t draw in the crowds, you know something’s got to be wrong.

Smith, who helped write and produce the film, stars alongside his 14 year-old son Jaden. It is set 1,000 years After Earth (or AE) was abandoned by humans hoping to escape an environmental catastrophe of their own making.  Hardly any acting is required in what is presumably an incredibly long trailer for the After Earth video game. Will Smith plays himself as some sort of intergalactic general and occasional father, while son Jaden plays his brash young son, Kitai. A crash landing on earth means the father-son duo have to confront the wilds humans once called Mother Earth and, in doing so, heal their fractured relationship. Will is injured as a result of the crash, forcing young Jaden to trek 100km across hostile terrain, populated by scary, evolved animals and a dementor-esque alien to find the rescue beacon. But don’t forget, the film is set a millennium into the future, so Will can communicate to his offspring via the built-in Skype in Jaden’s space-age onesie.

Will Jaden prove he’s worthy of his father’s trust?

Unfortunately both of the film’s major draws (the special effects and the Smith family) are lacklustre.

ENTERTAINMENT HOT TUB CINEMA

Rockwell House, EC2A 3NN

!!!!"

WHAT could be better than sitting in the sun in a hot tub, drinking cocktails and watching a classic movie? Hot Tub Cinema yesterday kicked off its latest season with a screening of The Italian Job. The event sees nine gigantic tubs (each fitting between six and eight people) cover the roof of Rockwell House near to Shoreditch station.

After you have stripped down to your bathing costume, simply lie back and wait for the hipster staff to ferry food and drink your way.

Upcoming movies include Trainspotting, Withnail & I and Human Traffic. Don’t expect silence during the movie, though: it is a carnival atmosphere, with people shouting along to famous quotes (“You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!�). Great fun, weather permitting.

O *8=6;4 C82:4CB 0A4 J 0 B8G ?4AB>= CD1 8B J 0=3 0= 4867C ?4AB>= BD?4A CD1 8B J 7>CCD128=4<0 2><

This Liberace biopic hits the FILM

BEHIND THE CANDELABRA

Cert 15 | By Alex Dymoke

!!!!"

M

ICHAEL Douglasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on-screen sexual history features star turns from Demi Moore, Sharon Stone and Glenn Close â&#x20AC;&#x201C; now Matt Damon can be added to the most illustriously pot-holed bedpost in Hollywood.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a welcome and unexpected addition, arriving in the twilight of Douglasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s career, just three years after he announced on Letterman that he was suffering from advanced throat cancer. His hum-dinger of a performance rings with the freedom of someone who has narrowly escaped death. He revels in the ostentation but also plumbs the depths; nails both the grandeur and the delusion.

Damon plays Scott Thorson, whose memoir provides the plot of Behind the Candelabra. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a green 17 year old when heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s introduced to the ageing megastar and, while not immediately seduced by the glitz, it certainly tickles his curiosity.

The camera follows him as he wanders wide eyed around Liberaceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bejewelled Las Vegas home. Portraits of the artist hang on the wall and the Liberace insignia, a flamboyantly cursive â&#x20AC;&#x153;Lâ&#x20AC;?, is emblazoned across every fabric surface.

Liberaceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fascination with the impressionable midwestern lad leads to a weirdly paternal love affair. In between bouts of sex and hot-tub soaks, he promises first to employ Thorson and then to adopt him. He buys him mink coats, jewellery, a house and swears to be the father that Thorson never had.

By the time heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s warned of the capriciousness of his new keeper/lover/father, Thorson is comfortably settled into the lap of luxury. The deeper he descends into Liberaceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world, the less heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s able to resist the pianistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s increasingly extreme whims. He even goes under the knife to look more like the star, at the behest of Liberace himself.

It would be easy for Douglas to ratchet the camp up to cabaret caricature, but he successfully evokes the steely egomania lying beneath the flamboyance. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s narcissistic

Sweet Bowl by Patrick Caulfield

and needy, though itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not people he needs but parts of people: their youth, their bodies, their flattery.

Everyone â&#x20AC;&#x201C; including Walter Liberace the person â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is sucked into the orbit of Liberace the star. They all

want a piece of him, but he belongs to the massive crowds of ordinary people who come to see him play every night; the middle-Americans conservative enough to have no conception of camp at all; the people

who eliminate the possibility of him ever being open about his private life.

Beyond the Candelabra is outrageous and funny, but most of all, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an empathetic portrait of two vulnerable people.

FOR A limited time only itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s buyone-get-one-free at Tate Britain. For the price of one ticket you can see two exhibitions â&#x20AC;&#x153;in parallelâ&#x20AC;?. The mass-media inspired artworks of Gary Hume serve as an adjunct to the commodity-filled visions of the late modernist painter, Patrick Caulfield.

A>< C74 40A;H B 0D;584;3 developed an ultra-chic style that pared-down representations of everyday objects using simple black outlines and block-colours. While Caulfield has been misaligned with pop art, his more legitimate debt to cubist masters such as George Braques and Juan Gris, is made

ART

PATRICK CAULFIELD & GARY HUME Tate Britain | By Joseph Funnell

!!""" evident throughout the show. In later works we enter a world of visual games and clever technicolour tricks; hyperrealist elements are played off against basic forms in an incestuous battle to depict a simple scene.

In the Hume space, however, the credibility of â&#x20AC;&#x153;abstracting the familiarâ&#x20AC;? begins to wane. As part of C74 B / 64=4A0C8>= D<4

FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

right notes

managed to fool the art world with a distinct brand of fauxintellectualism that involved making something pretty look “conceptual”. Admittedly, the high gloss finish of his paintings are alluring, but for all their brightness, the works quickly become dull.

One of these shows offers an enjoyable interrogation of vision, the other simply shows an artist plucking ideas out of thin air (or more accurately, the newspaper) and making them shiny and seductive. It all seems a little bland and commercial – maybe this is why Tate has already given us half of our money back.

THEATRE

STRANGE INTERLUDE is long. The play is nine acts and the original 1928 Broadway production lasted over four hours. Clocking in at three hours, 15 minutes, Simon Godwin’s rendition is somewhat more sprightly. Nonetheless, I anticipated looking forward to the intermission.

Happily, the interval proved less of a strange interlude and more an unwanted one. Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer-prize winning play combines the structure of an epic with the pathos of melodrama, and is accented with just enough humour to complement the histrionics.

Nina Leeds, young, charming,

Plenty of blood is spilled in Trash Cuisine

TRASH CUISINE

Young Vic | By Alex Dymoke

!""""

AS I walked out of the Young Vic, covered in flour and onion fragments, I cast my mind over the most unpleasant events of my life: the panic attack I had two days before my finals… the time I had to get the piece of flesh between my two front teeth surgically sliced off to make room for metal braces... French GCSE… Where does sitting through 95 minutes of the Free Belarus Theatre’s anti-death penalty diatribe Trash Cuisine rank? It’s like a sixth form production, but one where the earnest 17 year olds were granted permission to take their clothes off and cover the audience in their mums’ groceries.

The occasionally inventive physical theatre doesn’t come close to saving the play from its astonishing moral naivety. The anti death penalty message is conveyed through sorrowful vignettes depicting notable miscarriages of justice, completely missing the most important point: if you believe state sanctioned killing is wrong, then it’s wrong regardless of whether the defendant is guilty or innocent. The stories are punctuated by Shakespearean monologues seemingly selected at random and surreal food-based scenes that try to draw some unfathomable analogy between regional cuisine and human rights abuses.

It was an odd experience, watching a group of people make passionate, inept arguments for something I agreed with in the first place. It makes the “hard-hitting” elements intensely aggravating. I don’t need to stare down the barrel of a nude, shackled actor to be made aware that capital punishment is humiliating. I get it. I really do. Now go away.

CAN a psychopathic killer be scary if he's wearing brown tinted aviator shades, a Hawaiian shirt and cuban heels? What about if he has a dense handlebar moustache? If that psychopathic killer is played by boggle-eyed villain-specialist Michael Shannon, the answer is yes. After a long career playing sibilant baddies – fodder for more straightforwardly handsome heroes to casually bump off on the way to a happy ending – finally there’s a lead

Matt Damon stars as Liberace’s lover

27

THEATRE

STRANGE INTERLUDE

Lyttelton Theatre | By Charlie McCann

!!!!" besotted with her beau Gordon, is devastated when he is killed in WWI. The play explores the consequences of this loss for Nina and for the other men in her life: Charles Marsden, patient cynic, Sam Evans, feckless idiot, Ned Darrell, dreamboat doctor. All three adore her but she’s only got eyes for Gordon’s ghost. Years pass, the tussle with social norms waxes and wanes and the embrace of victimhood

FILM

role bad enough to call his own. “The Iceman” is the nickname that was given to Richard Kuklinksi, a prolific contract killer who worked for various mafia bosses in the 70s. When he

isn’t spreading cyanide in peanut butter sandwiches, he is a devoted husband and father to a blissfully ignorant family.

Ray Liotta is one of the few actors who could give Shannon a run for his money in a scary face competition, and he’s on great, terrifying form here as Kuklinksi’s boss Roy DeMeo. A familiar-feeling true crime thriller elevated by two fearsome performances.

takes its toll in surprising ways.

The staging, the acting, the direction — all are excellent. Jason Watkins plays Sam to a tee and Anne-Marie Duff is superb as Nina.

Soutra Gilmour’s set is a technical marvel. Action plays out in a scholarly New England townhouse, a swanky Manhattan apartment and the deck of a yacht.

It’s quite a display but, it never distracts from O’Neill’s realism.

There are flaws. O’Neill’s portrayal of women was scandalous in both his day and ours. Even so, if Strange Interlude is not quite “the essential play”, as O’Neill grandiosely put it, it’s certainly worth seeing.

Anne-Marie Duff as protagonist Nina

THE ICEMAN

Cert 15 | By Alex Dymoke

!!"""

SATELLITE& &CABLE CABLE SATELLITE

cityam.com

FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

TV & GAMES

TERRESTRIAL TERRESTRIAL

28

BBC1 BBC1

BBC2 BBC2

6pm BBC News; Weather 6.30pm BBC London News 7pm CHOICE The Voice UK: 9pm EastEnders 9.30pm The Voice UK Results: The coaches lose one act each.

10pm BBC News 10.25pm Regional News; National Lottery Update 10.35pm The Graham Norton Show 11.25pm The Matt Lucas Awards 11.55pm FILM Point Break 1991.

6pm Eggheads: Quiz show, hosted by Dermot Murnaghan.

6.30pm The Chefâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Protege 7pm Bill Baileyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jungle Hero 8pm Natureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Microworlds 8.30pm Gardenersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; World 9pm The Time Travellerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Guide to Elizabethan England 10pm QI 10.30pm Newsnight 11pm Weather 11.05pm Later with Jools Holland 12.10am The Tudors

ITV1 ITV

6pm ITV News London 6.30pm ITV News 7pm Emmerdale 7.30pm Coronation Street 8.30pm Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve Been Framed!

9pm CHOICE Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Secret Homes 10pm ITV News at Ten 10.30pm ITV News London 10.35pm French Open Tennis: The menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s semi-finals.

12am Jackpot247

1.50am Weatherview 1.55am-6am BBC News

1.05am The Tudors 2am Sign Zone: Question Time 3am-6am This Is BBC Two

3am FILM Columbo: The Most Crucial Game: Detective drama, starring Peter Falk and Robert Culp.

1972. 4.15am-6am ITV Nightscreen

SKY SPORTS 1

BRITISH EUROSPORT

BBC THREE

7pm NBA Action 7.30pm Live International Football 10pm ICC Champions Trophy Cricket 12am International Football 1.30am ICC Champions Trophy Cricket 3.30am Premier League World 4am International Football 5.30am-6am Premier League World

7pm Live Formula 1: Canadian Grand Prix Practice Two 9pm Russell Howardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Good News Extra 9.45pm Sweat the Small Stuff: Extra Sweaty 10.30pm EastEnders 11pm Family Guy 11.45pm American Dad! 12.30am Russell Howardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Good News Extra 1.15am Sweat the Small Stuff 2am The Hoffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Best Action Film Ever! 2.30am The Call Centre 3.30am-3.55am Worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Craziest Fools

7pm French Open Tennis 10pm Game, Set and Mats 10.30pm World Cup World Tour 11.30pm-12.35am Cycling

ESPN

7pm Live International Football 9.15pm NBA Basketball 11.45pm ESPN FC Press Pass 12.15am ESPN Kicks: MLS 12.45am 30 for 30 1.45am NHRA Drag Racing 2.45am ESPN Kicks: Extra 3am Live Friday Night Fights 5am-6am 30 for 30

SKY SPORTS 2

7pm BMX Supercross 7.30pm Live Super League 10pm WWE: Late Night â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Smackdown 12am WWE: Late Night â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Bottom Line 1am Super League 3am Tight Lines 4am-6am Super League

SKY LIVING

SKY SPORTS 3

7pm Tight Lines 8pm Live PGA Tour Golf 11pm European Seniors Tour Golf 12am European Tour Golf 2am PGA Tour Golf 5am BMX Supercross 5.30am-6am IAAF Athletix

6pm The Simpsons 6.30pm Hollyoaks 7pm Channel 4 News 7.55pm 4thought.tv 8pm Four Rooms 9pm Channel 4â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Comedy Gala 11.35pm 10 Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Clock Live 12.30am Random Acts 12.35am FILM No Escape: Sci-fi adventure, starring Ray Liotta. 1994.

6pm Home and Away: 6.30pm 5 News at 6.30 7pm The Removal Men: 5 News Update

2.40am New Girl 3am The Mindy Project 3.25am Happy Endings 3.45am The New Normal 4.10am Accidentally on Purpose 4.30am Deal or No Deal 5.10am Countdown 5.25am Countdown 5.55am-6.10am SuperScrimpers

10pm Channel 5â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Scary Flight Night: Worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Most Extreme Airports: 11.30pm Channel 5â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Scary Flight Night: Ripped from the Cockpit: BA Flight of Terror: 12.30am SuperCasino 3.55am Motorsport Mundial 4.20am House Doctor 4.45am Great Artists 5.10am-6am Wildlife SOS

Moylesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Quiz Night 4.05am Life Unexpected 4.45am-6am Desperate Housewives

DISCOVERY HOME & HEALTH

8pm CHOICE Eddie Stobart: Trucks and Trailers; 5 News at 9 9pm Channel 5â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Scary Flight Night: Worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Scariest Plane Landings:

7pm Storage Wars 7.30pm Pawn Stars 8pm Counting Cars 9pm American Restoration 10pm Storage Wars: Texas 11pm Storage Wars 11.30pm Pawn Stars 12am American Restoration 1am Storage Wars: Texas 2am Pawn Stars 3am Ax Men 4am Seeking Salvage 5am-8am Teleshopping

7pm Bringing Home the Babies 8pm Homes Under the Hammer 9pm Born Schizophrenic: Januaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Next Chapter 10pm I Didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Know I Was Pregnant 11pm I Have a Child with Special Needs 12am Born Schizophrenic: Januaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Next Chapter 1am I Didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Know I Was Pregnant 2am Dr Oz 3am Homes Under the Hammer 4am Portland Babies 5am-6am Birth Day Girls

DISCOVERY

SKY1

HISTORY

E4

7pm CSI: Crime Scene Investigation 8pm UK Border Force 9pm Criminal Minds 10pm Hannibal 11pm Bones 1.50am Supernatural 2.40am Bones 3.30am Medium 4.20am Airline USA 5.10am-6am Nothing to Declare

7pm Hollyoaks 7.30pm How I Met Your Mother 8pm The Big Bang Theory 8.30pm 2 Broke Girls 9pm FILM Cocktail 1988.

11.05pm The Big Bang Theory 12am PhoneShop 12.35am Friday Night Dinner 1.05am Facejacker 1.40am Cardinal Burns 2.15am Comedy Lab 2.40am Revenge 3.25am Chris

KAKURO

Place the numbers from 1 to 9 in each empty cell so that each row, each column and each 3x3 block contains all the numbers from 1 to 9 to solve this tricky Sudoku puzzle.

Fill the grid so that each block adds up to the total in the box above or to the left of it.

You can only use the digits 1-9 and you must not use the same digit twice in a block. The same digit may occur more than once in a row or column, but it must be in a separate block.

S Y L L A B U S

H A I A R L D I N E E S D M A N M

C K S A G D S O E U S A H S I O C V A N A B L

H S N I M A L F R L I C I T U O H P I I I O N I C C K N W I N S D E O W E S T

5 8 9 7 6

1 2 5 6

5 7 8 3 9

23

7 15

13 10 38

6

22 29

1 9 7 3 9 5 7 2 2 1 8 4 9 1 2 1 4 8

1 8 9 1 3 2

9 5 6 2 3 1 1 2 6 3 5 3 4 4 1 7 6 9 8 7 6 7 9 3 1 4 9 8

8 6 7 9

3 5 1 2 6

SUDOKU WORDWHEEL The nine-letter word was PNEUMATIC

EDDIE STOBART: TRUCKS AND TRAILERS CHANNEL5, 8PM

Ashley Maddocks takes a scenic route through the Lake District as he goes to pick up bottled water, but he finds himself battling severe weather.

BRITAINâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SECRET HOMES

ITV, 9PM New series. Michael Buerk and Bettany Hughes reveal 50 properties that provide an insight into how the nation once lived.

6

5

22

11 15

27

11

W

I

R D

35

G O

14 16

16 12

23

5

17

35

45

21

20

28

10

39

30 14

Using only the letters in the Wordwheel, you have ten minutes to find as many words as possible, none of which may be plurals, foreign words or proper nouns. Each word must be of three letters or more, all must contain the central letter and letters can only be used once in every word. There is at least one nine-letter word in the wheel.

KAKURO 2 5 3 4 1

29

WORDWHEEL

QUICK CROSSWORD

4

21

24

LAST ISSUEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SOLUTIONS

13

26

45

17

BBC1, 7PM The first live round of the singing contest, in which the 12 remaining acts perform for a place in next weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s semi-final. Holly Willoughby presents.

QUICK CROSSWORD

Copyright Puzzle Press Ltd, www.puzzlepress.co.uk

15

THE VOICE UK

7.30pm Futurama 8pm The Middle 8.30pm Modern Family 9pm Revolution 10pm A League of Their Own 11pm Spartacus: Blood and Sand 12.10am Chris Ryanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Strike Back 1.10am Road Wars 2.05am Ross Kemp: Extreme World 3.05am Road Wars 4am-6am Stargate SG-1

7pm Fast â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Loud 8pm Weird or What? 9pm Property Wars 10pm Deadliest Catch: Reloaded 11pm Auction Hunters 12am Property Wars 1am Gold Rush 3am Property Wars 3.50am Gold Rush 4.40am American Chopper 5.30am-6am Destroyed in Seconds

COFFEE BREAK SUDOKU

TV PICK

CHANNEL4 CHANNEL5 CHANNEL4 CHANNEL5

E

N P

ACROSS

DOWN

1 Space for movement (4) 3 Theatrical entertainment (5) 6 Not in action (4) 7 Flat round object (4) 9 By way of (3) 10 Corridor (7) 12 Ramâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mate (3) 13 Fish eggs (3) 14 Renders capable for some task (7) 15 Not good (3) 16 Diving bird of northern seas (3) 18 Person who mates and sells the offspring of animals (7) 20 Inflated pride (3) 21 Auld Lang _ _ _, song by Robert Burns (1788) (4) 22 Wire hairpin (4) 23 Unit of length (5) 24 Shipâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s small boat (4)

1 Narrow raised strip (5) 2 Aluminium silicate mineral (4) 3 Elaborate (8) 4 Opponent (9) 5 Dumbfound (5) 8 Fast vehicle for travelling on water (9) 11 Forage (8) 15 Freshwater fish of the carp family (5) 17 Go down on bended legs (5) 19 Detect (4)

cityam.com

FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

THEPUNTER

29 SUMMER OF SPORT

WORLD CUP

SPORT TRADER

QUALIFIERS

ROBIN HUTCHISON AND BILL ESDAILE BRING YOU THE BEST CRICKET AND RACING BETS OF THE WEEKEND

1/3 Croatia

England set to heap even more misery on Aussie laughing stock

4/1 Draw

Scotland 8/1

Kick-off 7.15pm, Live on BBC

Correct Score

Croatia 10/1 9/2 10/1 17/4

Scotland 0-0 10/1 1-0 18/1 1-1 10/1 2-0 60/1

Croatia 10/1 40/1 7/1 14/1

2-1 2-2 3-0 3-1

Scotland 33/1 40/1 200/1 125/1

1/12 Rep of Ireland 8/1 Draw Faroe Islands 28/1 Kick-off 7.45pm, Live on Sky Sports 1

Correct Score

ROI 28/1 17/2 5/1 9/2

Faroe Islands 0-0 28/1 1-0 80/1 2 - 0 200/1 3 - 0 300/1

ROI 6/1 10/1 18/1 40/1

Faroe Islands 4 - 0 300/1 5 - 0 300/1 6 - 0 300/1 7 - 0 300/1

Prices subject to fluctuation.

ENHANCED ACCA of Ireland, Italy 9/4 Republic & Croatia all to win Available online, mobile & telephone only.

The return of Broad and Finn could tip the balance between two inconsistent sides as England and Australia line up for the first time this summer

I

N THE headlong rush to laugh at Australia’s misfortunes it’s been easy to overlook the fact England have deficiencies in all three facets of the game.

A comfortable victory over New Zealand in the Test series was followed by a rude awakening with the white ball.

Martin Guptill in particular took a shine to England’s secondstring attack shorn of Stuart Broad and Steven Finn. Their batsmen fared little better.

A top score of 37 in the first ODI and 34 in the second, leaving aside Jonathan Trott’s ponderously accumulated century, only exposed the dropped catches and slipshod fielding.

Yet in fairness to Andy Flower’s men, the timing of their partial resurrection in the dead rubber at Trent Bridge couldn’t have been better.

Alastair Cook may not have hung around, but a decent

knock from opener Ian Bell along with contributions from Trott, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler helped post their first competitive score.

Between them Finn and Broad took four wickets, and James Tredwell’s 3-51, including the much-prized scalp of Guptill, proved there is life in the attack outside the new ball pairing.

Their opponents tomorrow are in need of a fillip too, after the mirth-inducing ignominy of their 243-run defeat against India in Cardiff.

For those in need of a smile, it’s worth reminding ourselves that only Phil Hughes and Adam Voges managed double figures – while eight others contributed five runs or fewer.

It’s also worth noting that they beat Pakistan, however, drew with Sri Lanka away from home, and whitewashed the West Indies in recent tournaments.

Such inconsistency by both sides led to cautious initial pricing in the offices, with bookies offering little between them.

But as the money has come for the hosts the Aussies have slipped out to 11/10 with Coral, reflecting a lack of faith fuelled by patriotic pride.

They are not so far out yet that I think they’re worth a go, and I’m inclined to believe they’ll need another match before they’re reacquainted with English conditions, despite the pleasant forecast.

We’re not going to get rich on a 4/5 shot however, and a dip into the other markets is required.

For a man who has enjoyed as much success in Australia as his sea-faring namesake, captain Cook is worthy favourite at 3/1 to be top England batsman.

There are cases to be made for Bell and Trott at 7/2 and 10/3 too, and I’ll certainly be buying the runs of the former with Sporting

Index on an Edgbaston ground which has yielded five wins for the hosts in their last six completed ODIs. Yet the 49 in 40 balls that Morgan scampered in Nottingham suggests England’s finest finisher is back to his best.

The 7/1 Stan James are offering about our man in the middleorder is well worth a look if Australia’s quick bowlers see off England’s leading quartet.

His Middlesex team-mate Steven Finn, who scooped the FTI Most Valuable Player award in the winter, will be hoping he’ll be among the wickets too. He’s 7/2 to be top England bowler with Coral.

! Pointers…

winner PASTORAL PLAYER. Hughie Morrison’s six-yearold suffered a nightmare passage when fourth behind Eton Forever last month and he was very well backed that day.

He loves fast ground and with Graham Lee booked and riding with confidence again, he is a strong fancy.

Earlier on the card, Roger Varian’s AMBIVALENT looks to hold really strong claims in the Group Three Bet Victor Pinnacle Stakes (2.40pm). She ran with the choke out for most of the Middleton Stakes last time but still managed to finish second, beaten just a length by Dalkala.

This is a drop in class and it isn’t the strongest of races, although the German-trained Nymphea is a fascinating contender. She won a Listed race at Baden-Baden last time, but it’s hard to weigh up that form.

It’s over to Newmarket’s July

course for the other two selections and the first comes in the opening maiden (1.45pm) where GM HOPKINS is fancied to land the prize for John Gosden and William Buick.

This son of Dubawi made a pleasing debut on the Rowley Mile last month, finishing to good effect after a tardy start. In time he will want further than six furlongs, but he is very well regarded at home and there will be plenty of long faces at Clarehaven if he is beaten.

Sir Michael Stoute seems to have some progressive handicap sprinters this season and his ENROL is worth following in the Betfair Supporting The Animal Health Trust Handicap (2.55pm).

The Cheveley Park-owned daughter of Pivotal won nicely on her reappearance at Doncaster, after looking in a little spot of trouble three furlongs out, and you can be sure that there is plenty more

England to beat Australia at 4/5 with Coral Buy Ian Bell runs at 40 with Sporting Index Eoin Morgan to be top England batsman at 7/1 with Stan James Steven Finn to be top England bowler at 7/2 with Coral

to come from her.

For those of you yet to make plans for Royal Ascot, you could do a lot worse than booking a place in the Bessborough Restaurant. They have a new theme this year with a daily panel of special guests running through the card, including John Francome, William Buick and Michael Owen.

Fine dining experiences start at £570 per person and are now on sale. To find out more information or to make a booking please visit www.royalascothospitality.co.uk .

! Pointers…

GM HOPKINS

AMBIVALENT ENROL PASTORAL PLAYER

TENNIS ROLAND GARROS 2013 LIVE ON ITV4 MEN’S SEMI FINALS FROM 12PM

11/8 N. DJOKOVIC

v

R. NADAL 4/7

SET BETTING

N.Djokovic 11/2 9/2 6/1

1.45pm Newmarket (tomorrow) 2.40pm Haydock (tomorrow) 2.55pm Newmarket (tomorrow) 3.15pm Haydock (tomorrow)

@BillEsdaile

R. Nadal 11/4 3/1 5/1

3-0 3-1 3-2 GAME HANDICAP

10/11 N.Djokovic +2.5

Pastoral Player looks ready to strike again at Haydock THIS is one of the more low-key weekends on the racing calendar with both trainers and punters casting an eye towards Royal Ascot. The best quality events are up at Haydock and the most interesting race is the Timeform Jury Stakes (3.15pm).

Eton Forever is the likely favourite after his solid win over course and distance last month where he had two of tomorrow’s rivals behind him.

However, he struggles a little for consistency and his best form has come with some cut in the ground.

Red Jazz, who was third to Eton Forever last time, always tries hard, but is starting to look a little exposed, while Premio Loco is now nine and could finally be getting a little long in the tooth.

Libranno doesn’t seem to truly stay a mile, so will appreciate the drop back to seven furlongs, but I’m keener on the chances of last year’s

FRENCH OPEN

-2.5 R. Nadal 4/5

FROM 2PM

4/6 D.FERRER D.Ferrer 3/1 3/1 5/1

v

J.W. TSONGA 6/5

SET BETTING

3-0 3-1 3-2

J.W. Tsonga 5/1 9/2 11/2

GAME HANDICAP

10/11 D.Ferrer -2.5

+2.5 J.W. Tsonga 4/5

Other markets on request. All above prices subject to fluctuation.

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FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

30

SPORT Warburton fit and relishing first Lions start

BY JOSH RICHARDS BRITISH and Irish Lions captain Sam Warburton says tomorrow cannot come quickly enough as he prepares to lead the team for the first time against Queensland Reds.

The 24-year-old sat out the first two tour matches with a knee injury but has been passed fit and starts in an all-Wales back row alongside Dan Lydiate and Toby Faletau.

Warburton is one of six new starters in all selected by head coach Warren Gatland and is desperate to show what he can do after watching landslide victories over Barbarians and Western Force from the sideline.

“I am just dying to get on the pitch,” he said. “Since we got together as a squad it has been amazing. I have absolutely loved it, even though I haven’t played.

“I don’t feel left out at all. Now I have got a chance on Saturday. I have been thinking about this game for quite a while now and I am absolutely desperate to get on the pitch.

“All the back-rowers have done exceptionally well, which I am sure makes selection very tough. Those Test spots are what everyone is

Sam Warburton has overcome a knee injury playing for at the end of the day.”

Scrum-half Ben Young, prop Matt Stevens, hooker Tom Youngs and lock Geoff Parling are all set to make their first starts on tour, while England team-mate Owen Farrell regains the No10 shirt from Jonny Sexton.

Gethin Jenkins replaces injured prop Cian Healy, while centre Manu Tuilagi and wing Tommy Bowe retain their places in the starting line-up.

“We always said we would give every players a start in the first three matches and this team reflects that,” said Gatland. “It also provides us with the opportunity to continue to look at different combinations. At the same time we have several players playing their second matches on tour and some proven combinations starting the match.

“Two wins and two victories is great, but those two matches are building blocks as we build towards the Test series.”

Stuart Hogg, Alex Cuthbert, Jonathan Davies, Tommy Bowe and Richie Gray have also been named in tomorrow’s starting XV.

cityam.com/sport

@cityam_sport

Wenger deal hint is timely lift to Arsenal pulling power

BY FRANK DALLERES ARSENAL have offered reassurance to any wavering transfer targets after chief executive Ivan Gazidis indicated manager Arsene Wenger is likely to extend his tenure beyond next season.

The Gunners have been expected to end years of bargain hunting by making £70m available for summer reinforcements, but have yet to announce any signings despite the season ending almost three weeks ago.

Wenger’s position came under unprecedented scrutiny last term following a turbulent start to the campaign, raising questions about whether the Frenchman would see out a contract that now has just 12 months to run.

The 63-year-old is the longest serving manager in the Premier League, the second in all Europe, and has been courted by super-rich Paris Saint-Germain.

But Gazidis declared yesterday that the north London club would like to tie Wenger to a new deal, potentially taking his reign into a third decade, and implied he expected the will to be reciprocated.

“We think we have got a fantastic manager. We hope that he wants to do what he is doing for the long term. I

believe he does,” said Gazidis. “I think he is still ambitious, still driven and sees the potential of the club as he looks forward and I think he is very excited by that.

“We have a great relationship and he has a great relationship with the board as well. So, quietly and at the right time, I think we will make an announcement on that when things are all put in place.”

Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney, Gonzalo Higuain of Real Madrid and Fiorentina’s Stevan Jovetic are among the players carrying £20m-plus price tags who are thought to interest Wenger, who took charge in 1996.

None has arrived, however, though Gazidis does not believe Wenger’s contract situation would be a deterrent, emphasising instead that the long association between manager and club ought to be an attraction.

“This is a club that has had remarkable consistency in terms of its manager, its football philosophy, its direction,” he added.

“The consistent support from the board and our principal owner for our manager is pretty much unmatched, through some difficult periods as well.

So if its consistency players are looking for, I think Arsenal would be a very attractive place to come.”

Arsene Wenger’s current contract has 12 months left to run

Wade set for England debut as Lancaster warns of tough test

BY JOSH RICHARDS ENGLAND coach Stuart Lancaster will grant debuts to Wasps wing Christian Wade and new Gloucester flanker Matt Kvesic against Argentina tomorrow and warned his reshaped team to brace themselves for a bumpy ride.

With 10 England

regulars included in the British and Irish Lions squad, plus Chris Ashton and Chris Robshaw left at home, Lancaster views the two-Test series in South America as the ideal chance to run the rule over several inexperienced players ahead of the home autumn internationals.

“The intensity will be higher than some of the players have played in before,” he said. “The speed of thought and deed, dealing with the passion and emotion

Christian Wade is set to make his England debut against Argentina

of it all will be critical. It is the perfect challenge we want for this group of players.”

Following Alex Corbisiero’s late call-up to the Lions squad, Lancaster has picked Joe Marler in the front row alongside Rob Webber, while Bath team-mate Dave Attwood plays in the second row with Wasps’ Joe Launchbury.

Tom Wood captains the team and Ben Morgan starts at No8.

Prop David Wilson, scrum-half Lee Dickson, fly-half Freddie Burns, wing David Strettle, midfielders Billy Twelvetrees and Jonathan Joseph, plus full-back Mike Brown complete the starting line-up.

Fernandinho signs for City

BY JOSH RICHARDS BRAZIL midfielder Fernandinho wants to turn new club Manchester City into a dominant force in European football.

The 28-year-old completed his £30m move from Shakhtar Donetsk yesterday, after passing a medical and agreeing a four-year contract.

And having won 14 major trophies at the Ukrainian club, including the 2009 Uefa Cup, Fernandinho is targeting similar glory at the Etihad Stadium.

“My ambition here is to win all the titles,” he said.

“This is a change, a challenge and a chance that I have been waiting a long time for. Playing in the Premier League for City is like a dream.”

FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

cityam.com 31

Britain’s Chris Froome, who will lead Team Sky at the Tour de France, won stage five of the Criterium du Dauphine to take the overall lead

FOOTBALL Europe’s most COMMENT loyal servants TREVOR STEVEN Ronnie McFall (Portadown), joined 1986 ! McFall walked into Shamrock Park six weeks after Sir Alex Ferguson joined Manchester United and is now the longestserving manager in European football, following the Scot’s decision to retire last month. The 67-year-old has guided the Northern Ireland club to four league titles, including their first ever in 1990. McFall was made an MBE in the 2008 New Year Honours list for his services to football and the local community.

Arsene Wenger (Arsenal), joined 1996 ! Eight trophy-free seasons for Wenger, 63, at Arsenal, but the Frenchman is still heralded as one of English football’s most respected coaches. Dubbed “The Professor”, Wenger masterminded a record 49-match unbeaten run in 2004 and has guided the Gunners to four Premier League titles and three FA Cup wins. They have also qualified for the Champions League in each of the last 15 seasons. Wenger was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2003 for services to football.

Pekka Lyyski (IFK Mariehamn), joined 2002 ! In the third tier of Finnish football when Lyyski arrived, he guided Mariehamn to successive promotions in 2003 and 2004.

The 59-year-old has since transformed the Aland Islands-based club into a competitive force in Finland’s Premier Division, known as the Veikkausliiga.

Nanne Bergstrand (Kalmar FF), joined 2003 ! Currently enjoying his third spell in the

Kalmar dugout. Bergstrand, 57, won the Swedish Cup in 2007, the league title in 2008 and the Swedish Super Cup in 2009. He also spent two years as a player at the Guldfageln Arena.

I

T’S EASY to feel like Jose Mourinho’s return to Chelsea for a second stint as manager will mean the Portuguese picking up exactly where he left off, but that can’t happen.

Pillars of his first reign John Terry and Frank Lampard might still be there, as well as Ashley Cole and Petr Cech, but they are all nearly six years older and Mourinho must take the squad forward.

I don’t think he will make dramatic changes, as I’m sure he will feel comfortable with the squad he has inherited.

Yet there are likely to be two or three arrivals and, as happens at every club, some players will inevitably get left behind.

GOALKEEPER

Young Belgian Thibaut Courtois, who enjoyed a season of first-team football at Atletico Madrid last term, looks ready to take over the gloves from Cech.

However the long-serving Chelsea No1 is only 31, so probably has a few seasons left in him, and I’d be very surprised if Mourinho didn’t keep faith with him.

The most likely outcome is Courtois going back on loan, although I’d insert the option to recall him at Christmas, just in case Cech’s deterioration is sudden.

DEFENCE

Both David Luiz and Branislav Ivanovic have attracted interest from Barcelona, but I expect Mourinho will be very keen to keep them.

Cole and Gary Cahill look likely to have important roles too and, while Cesar Azpilicueta’s future looks less secure, the Spaniard has done fairly well and I doubt a new right-back will be the new manager’s top priority.

The most interesting question is over the future of Terry. Like Lampard, the centre-back is no longer the automatic pick of Mourinho’s first Chelsea tenure – in fact age has been quicker to catch up

Williams sets up Sharapova final to close in on French Open title

BY STEFAN VASILEV WORLD No1 Serena Williams admitted defending champion Maria Sharapova will be hard to beat in this year’s French Open final after both achieved victories in the semi-finals yesterday.

Williams, who triumphed at Roland Garros in 2002, thrashed last year’s finalist Sara Errani, 6-0, 6-1, while Sharapova had to work hard to overcome sturdy third seed Victoria Azarenka, 6-1, 2-6, 6-4.

“It’s magnificent to be back in the final after 11 years,” said the 31year-old American.

“Against Maria, I will have to prepare slightly differently. She’s a great player.”

Williams only took 21 minutes to

end the first set and required just 46 in total to clinch the match.

Errani, who has never beaten Williams, won a single game in the second set to earn cheers from the Philippe Chatrier crowd but that was all she had strength for against the in-form 15-time Grand Slam winner.

Earlier, defending champion Sharapova won the first set before Azarenka fought back to level as rain interrupted the match.

In a final set full of twists, including two games of more than 10 minutes, the Russian was the one who celebrated in the end.

On Saturday, Sharapova has the difficult task of defending her title with a win – the one thing she has never achieved against Williams.

Jose Mourinho will have been greeted by familiar faces in Frank Lampard and John Terry upon his return to Stamford Bridge this week

Key decisions facing Mourinho as he evaluates his Chelsea squad with Terry than the midfielder.

I’m sure there remains a mutual respect, however, between player and manager and I see Mourinho preferring to keep the old guard – Terry included – together.

MIDFIELD

Oriol Romeu’s long-term injury saw him miss most of last season and means he has been left behind, although I wonder whether John Obi Mikel’s claim for that defensive role might be even more under threat.

Lampard showed at the end of the season that he still has something to offer, so should have a role – although he is on thin ice. Welltimed runs are such a crucial

IN BRIEF India win Champions Trophy opener ! CRICKET: Opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan

scored 114 off 94 balls to help steer India, 331-7, to a 26-run win over South Africa, 305, in the opening match of the ICC Champions Trophy in Cardiff yesterday. Ryan McLaren took three wickets and posted 71 not out for South Africa.

Torrance two off the lead in Cheshire ! GOLF: Former Ryder Cup captain Sam Torrance is two shots off the lead following the first round of the ISPS Handa Seniors Championship in Cheshire. The City A.M. columnist holed seven birdies and finished four-under-par.

Lomas named new Millwall manager ! FOOTBALL: Millwall have agreed terms with

Steve Lomas to take over as manager when he returns from holiday next week. The former West Ham midfielder is to leave St Johnstone.

component of his game and when the legs go, it will dent his effectiveness considerably.

Galatasaray’s Wesley Sneijder, a key member of Mourinho’s Europeconquering Inter Milan side, has been linked with a reunion and I could see him being of interest.

FORWARDS

Andre Schurrle has been tipped for months to join from Bayer Leverkusen, though I’m not sure he looks like the kind of player Mourinho would choose.

Fiorentina’s coveted Stevan Jovetic is an alternative in that wide left role and would be a very good buy, if the money is there. Either way Yossi

Results

Benayoun’s time looks up. Hulk is another on Chelsea’s radar, but I’d expect them to go for an out-and-out centre forward before targeting a wide player.

Romelu Lukaku, another who has shone on loan, looks like a player Mourinho would want to keep at Stamford Bridge this season.

I don’t think he’ll ditch Fernando Torres, despite his best being behind him, unless he could use him in part exchange for someone like Gonzalo Higuain. However, I don’t see Real Madrid going for that deal.

Trevor Steven is a former England footballer who played at two World Cups and two European Championships. He now works as a media commentator.

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