17 December, 2020

Covid and liquidity boost ‘mega’ M&A deals

Corporate finance junkies will have noticed the stream of M&A "mega deals" (those worth $5bn or more) over recent months, capped by news this week of

15 September, 2020

Share buybacks criticised for ‘short-term self-enrichment’ of executives

Share buybacks have earned themselves an unenviable reputation in recent years. And now they—and the executives who use them—are under attack again. Analysts this week unveiled a new scoring sy...

11 September, 2020

Board moves: Jane Fraser to take over as Citigroup CEO

Jane Fraser has been named as the new chief executive officer of Citigroup. Fraser joined Citigroup in 2004 i...

15 July, 2020

CVAs: flexible business aid or delaying the inevitable?

Stories of companies going bust and redundancies currently litter news sites and TV bulletins. But a number of big name brands have opted to use a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) as a means of sur...

8 June, 2020

How failed M&A can destroy a director’s credibility

Big mergers and acquisitions (M&As) make their first splash in the headlines based on the huge price tags attached to them. “Abbvie acquires Allergan, $63bn”, “United Technologies acquires R...

1 April, 2020

Pushback on buybacks as global brands postpone plans

On Wednesday this week WPP, one of the world’s largest marketing and advertising companies, suspended a £950m buyback announced last year. A day later Adidas, a global sports brand announced postpo...

30 September, 2019

Sasja Beslik: global finance industry ‘is the key to a sustainable future’

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3 July, 2019

Financial risk: questions the board should ask in uncertain times

Currency markets rarely hit the headlines during periods of stability. So it is unsurprising that, in the aftermath of the UK’s Brexit referendum, the precipitous fall in the value of the pound acte...

18 April, 2019

Trend for portfolio reviews drives M&A optimism

Nothing excites the business world like an M&A deal. Think of the fuss caused by the $30bn race to takeover of Sky by Comcast. And according to advisory firm EY, executives are so heady with M&...

29 October, 2018

Is it time to apply governance rules to the AIM stock exchange?

Two feted AIM stocks, Patisserie Valerie and Conviviality, revealed financial black holes that almost killed the first, and contributed to the collapse of the latter. While the AIM has always been ...