Ka-pow! New BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten has fired another salvo in the direction of the Corporation's senior independent non-executive director Marcus Agius, whose day job is chairman of Barclays. Patten is warning BBC executive salaries must fall sharply... more
Marcus Agius, chairman of the British Bankers' Association and Barclays, made a telling point this week at a BBA conference when he said: "Any talk of bank investors being prepared to accept utility-type returns is completely unrealistic." But he then drew the wrong conclusion... more
Is it really true, as BBC director-general Mark Thompson claimed to the Lords Communications Committee, that there were only two candidates for the D-G's job which he got in 2004?... more
New BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten showed a populist touch when, during his grilling by MPs, he lambasted high pay for the corporation's top executives - music to the ears of the politicians... more
So, as Goldman Sachs bids farewell to one of its biggest rainmakers of the past decade — Simon Dingemans, who is joining GlaxoSmithKline — City Spy wonders how confident the Fleet Street investment bank now feels about winning juicy future contracts with the Lib-Cons... more
Rupert Murdoch is such a convert to the world of Apple iPad and mobile apps that he has made the creation of a digital-only newspaper a top priority in the US... more
Barclays move quickly to defend the £11.5 million pay and bonus package it has offered Bob Diamond to take over as chief executive from John Varley... more
The decision of Fairfield Energy to cancel its initial public offering is bad news for the six banks, brokers and financial advisers that advised on the failed float... more
Barclays chairman Marcus Agius has warned UK regulators that they cannot afford to be tougher on banks than financial authorities in other countries such as the United States ... more
There was a curious sight outside the Saatchi Gallery on the Kings Road at lunchtime a couple of days ago. A group of a dozen or so grown men, and a few well-groomed women, excitedly gathered around two new gleaming Jaguar cars, which had stopped by the kerb... more
It was suggested here last Monday that it would be best if Sir Victor Blank stood down as chairman of Lloyds Banking Group rather than put the business through the strains of a shareholder revolt against his re-election. That is the decision he has wisely taken and he can now move on.... more
Just how brilliant is the car “scrappage” scheme in the Budget? It’s designed to stimulate the car industry but only £1000 of the £2000 paid to the owner of an old banger trading it in against a brand-new model, comes from the taxpayer; the rest is provided by the car industry... more
Goldman Sachs certainly put the cat among the pigeons when it released its first-quarter numbers on Monday night. That was nearly 24 hours ahead of schedule, and many of us thought we were still on our Easter break. ... more
One of the more interesting kites being flown over the weekend was the suggestion that Royal Bank of Scotland might find the chairman to replace Sir Tom McKillop in either Standard Chartered's Mervyn Davies or Sir Keith Whitson, who retired as chief executive of HSBC in 2003 after a 40-year stint at the bank.... more
Barclays today won shareholder backing for its highly controversial £7 billion fundraising, for which most of the money comes from Qatar and Abu Dhabi... more
The row between Barclays and its shareholders over the bank's plan to raise new capital from sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East is a wonderful mix of posturing and principle, pique and pay, set against the background of the biggest poker game the business world has seen... more
Tonight:
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