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/ 23 February 2009
Britain will inject billions of pounds into state-owned Northern Rock to try to unlock lending and help the economy emerge from recession.
The world’s financial markets remain at the eye of a perfect economic storm. The architects of this almighty financial sell-off? The banks themselves.
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/ 18 September 2008
Larry Elliott takes a look at the bail-out which is a nationalisation designed to avert the worst market collapse since the 1930s.
Germany’s Finance Minister, Peer Steinbrück, blamed the Bank of England on Friday for the collapse of Northern Rock and the loss of 2 000 jobs, savaging the central bank for not pumping enough liquidity into money markets last year. Unlike the central banks of the United States and European Union, the Bank of England failed to support the banking sector with vital loans, Steinbrück said.
Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are in talks about the feasibility of mass purchases of mortgage-backed securities in a bid to solve the global credit crisis, the Financial Times said on Saturday. The newspaper, without citing sources, said the talks were at an early stage and part of a broader exchange on how to battle the turmoil in financial markets,
JP Morgan Chase set a deal to buy stricken rival Bear Stearns for a rock-bottom price, while the United States Federal Reserve expanded lending to securities firms for the first time since the Great Depression to prop up the financial system. The shock news, the biggest sign yet of how devastating the credit crisis is for Wall Street, slammed the US dollar to a record low against the euro,
The global credit crunch claimed its biggest victim yet on Friday when the United States Federal Reserve orchestrated an emergency bail-out for Bear Stearns after a cash crisis prompted a run on the US’s fifth-biggest investment bank. President George Bush sought to calm fears of a deep recession in the world’s biggest economy.
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/ 23 February 2008
A secretive Swiss bank landed an apparently novel censorship blow against the internet this week. Anyone who tried to call up Wikileaks.org, a global website devoted to publicising leaked documents, found themselves frustrated. The site simply wasn’t there any more.
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/ 19 February 2008
The bank and resources indices kept the JSE in positive territory on Tuesday, lifting the bourse 0,7% higher by midday. Banks advanced 2,14% and financials collected 1,14%. The gold mining index added 1,46%, resources lifted 1,11% and the platinum mining index was up 0,58%. However, industrials were down 0,12%.
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/ 21 January 2008
Britain set a two-week deadline for a private-sector rescue of Northern Rock on Monday, as it confirmed plans to convert its billions of pounds of loans to the stricken bank into bonds in a bid to smooth a deal. The financing package will tie the government to Northern Rock, Britain’s biggest casualty of the global credit crunch, for years to come.
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/ 28 November 2007
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown faces a grilling in Parliament on Wednesday over the funding row that has engulfed the Labour party. Despite pledging to return the donations, Brown will face calls to explain what he knew about the £600 000 that property developer David Abrahams donated through intermediaries.
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/ 27 November 2007
Britain has asked the European Commission to approve the aid it has provided to struggling mortage lender Northern Rock, a Commission spokesperson said on Tuesday. ”Last night [Monday], the British government notified us,” EU competition spokesperson Jonathan Todd said.
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/ 26 November 2007
A consortium led by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group has been picked as the preferred bidder to rescue Northern Rock and plans to repay £11-billion (,6-billion) quickly to the Bank of England. Half the cash will come from the consortium and half will be raised through a rights issue at 25 pence per share.
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/ 14 November 2007
Shareholders in ailing British bank Northern Rock could be left with nothing and the Bank of England could still be funding the lender in three years. A briefing memorandum sent to potential buyers of Northern Rock by its advisers showed it could still owe as much as £5,9-billion to the Bank of England in 2010.
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/ 30 October 2007
The head of the Wall Street investment bank Merrill Lynch was on Monday night negotiating a severance package tipped to be as high as -million after a risky strategy of betting billions on American mortgage-backed securities came disastrously unstuck.
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/ 19 October 2007
Britain’s Northern Rock on Friday announced the resignation of chairperson Matt Ridley following a turbulent period at the crisis-hit bank. He will be succeeded by Bryan Sanderson, a former chairperson at British-based emerging markets bank Standard Chartered and healthcare firm Bupa, the company said in a statement.
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/ 15 October 2007
Northern Rock’s bosses face their toughest grilling since the British bank was engulfed in a funding crisis a month ago when lawmakers quiz them on Tuesday on their strategy and assessment of risk. Northern Rock CEO Adam Applegarth faces a Treasury Committee panel that last month accused the Bank of England of being asleep at the wheel during the crisis.
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/ 15 October 2007
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Outside Paris’s Frog and Rosbif English pub on Sunday morning, hoarse men and women in rugby shirts were still downing pints of beer with their bacon breakfasts and trying to come to terms with one of the more improbable results in English rugby history.
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/ 24 September 2007
Foreign students visiting Britain are to be educated in the etiquette of queuing for buses, after local users complained about them not observing the conventions of standing in line. A bus operator is to contact local language schools following several complaints about the behaviour of young students over the summer months.
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/ 19 September 2007
The Bank of England announced on Wednesday that it will inject £10-billion into longer-term money markets next week amid the ongoing global credit squeeze. Until now, the British central bank has refrained from pumping cash into the three-month money markets.
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/ 18 September 2007
The JSE’s all-share index came out of the morose state it was in earlier, edging up into positive territory by midday on Tuesday driven by the turnaround in the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100. Shortly before midday, the FTSE 100 was at 6 224,10 points, 0,67% better than Monday’s close as the Bank of England added liquidity to the United Kingdom market,
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/ 18 September 2007
Traders said South African markets may be under pressure on Tuesday as credit worries persist, but the upcoming United States interest rate decision will be the main focus. At 6.35am GMT, the rand stood at 7,23 to the dollar, softer than its New York close of 7,22 on Monday. Traders said the rand will probably trade in a ,17 to ,27/range.
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/ 17 September 2007
Thousands of customers queued to withdraw savings from embattled British bank Northern Rock on Monday and its shares plunged again, heightening pressure for a sale of the business or its assets. Britain’s fifth-biggest mortgage lender said there was no need for investors or customers to panic
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/ 17 September 2007
The JSE was sharply lower at midday on Monday as rekindled credit fears continued to spill over on to world markets. The JSE opened in negative territory and weakened further during the morning session on last week’s news that the United Kingdom’s fifth largest mortgage lender, Northern Rock, used the Bank of England as a lender of last resort.
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/ 16 September 2007
Troubled British bank Northern Rock faced break-up rumours on Sunday as it sought to reassure panicking customers and investors following an emergency bail-out by the Bank of England. Worried customers besieged Northern Rock on Friday and Saturday to withdraw their savings — despite assurances that it would not fall victim to the global credit squeeze.
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/ 15 September 2007
Worried customers were expected to keep withdrawing savings en masse on Saturday from embattled British bank Northern Rock after the Bank of England bailed out the lender. Customers formed lengthy queues outside branches on Friday after Britain’s fifth-biggest home-loan provider said it was facing severe difficulties raising cash to cover its liabilities.
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/ 14 September 2007
Shares in British bank Northern Rock plunged by a quarter on Friday as clients rushed to withdraw their savings following an emergency bail-out of the lender by the Bank of England. The central bank came to the rescue of Britain’s fifth-biggest home-loan provider, which is facing severe difficulties raising cash on money markets amid the ongoing global credit squeeze.