It's impossible for one institution to dominate London. The place is just too big. How different to, say, Dundee, home of marmalade and The Beano, and an agreeable enough town if you don't mind the Scottish weather. Finances there are dominated by the auld Alliance Trust. Such dominance has bred complacency... more
BP is left humiliated as its $16 billion Arctic tie-up with Rosneft fails, leaving the strategy new boss Bob Dudley hoped would help it recover from the Gulf of Mexico disaster in tatters... more
Talks between BP and its billionaire Russian partner AAR go down to the wire as the British oil giant desperately tries to seal a deal that would allow it to press ahead with its $16 billion Arctic tie-up with the Kremlin... more
Russian oil giant Rosneft denies reports that it was in talks to buy out the billionaire investors in BP's Russian joint venture TNK-BP, despite four separate sources saying otherwise... more
Royal Bank of Scotland has said a big “thank you” to the British taxpayer with the bailed-out bank’s latest cost-cutting exercise: it has scrapped its deal with British Airways, and has now instructed staff to fly American Airlines... more
Although the paying punters want nothing to do with him, controversial businessman Alisher Usmanov - one of Russia's few remaining billionaires - owns 25% of Arsenal's shares ... more
BP and its Russian partners at the BP-TNK joint venture launched a chief executive selection process straight out of Sir Alan Sugar's TV series The Apprentice... more
It is a recurring foible of politicians that they are far more candid in the speeches they make overseas than they ever seem to be in the set pieces they deliver at home... more
Tongues are wagging in Australia about the resignation of Brendan Hopkins from the board of Sir Anthony O’Reilly’s Independent & News Media, just days after he signed a three-year extension to his contract as chief executive of the Independent’s APN News & Media subsidiary Down Under... more
With all their promises of “no return to boom and bust” and commitments to “long-term economic strength and stability based on an unshakeable commitment to prudent monetary and fiscal rules”, Gordon Brown’s past Budget speeches as Chancellor make interesting reading... more
BBC Business editor Robert Peston has been leading the pack with his stories on the nationalisation of Bradford & Bingley, the Lloyds TSB-HBOS merger and the run on Northern Rock. But where does he get his information?... more
Energy: An end could be in sight to the fractious and potentially highly damaging dispute over BP’s huge interests in Russia — but at the cost of the departure of the chief executive at its Russian joint venture... more
While Alistair Darling’s interview for The Guardian was candid about the economy, his Budget speech in March — only four months ago, let us not forget — was decidedly less so... more
BP could lose joint control of the main operating company in its giant TNK-BP venture after dissident Russian shareholding oligarchs opened up their latest offensive to attack the British oil major's interests in the country... more
Exclusive: After high-profile allegations this season, Charlton's manager is pleased the issue is now being addressed but says the authorities still have plenty of work to do