Two former HBOS bankers and four other people were yesterday found guilty of a major fraud which contributed to losses that led to the taxpayer-funded rescues of several of Britain's top banks.
Prosecutors had alleged that two businessmen, Michael Bancroft and David Mills arranged sex parties, exotic foreign holidays and provided cash in brown envelopes for HBOS banker Lynden Scourfield between 2003 and 2007 to promote their turnaround consultancy to the bank’s customers as a condition for getting a loan.
HBOS, once Britain's biggest mortgage lender under the Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands and now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LON:LLOY), incurred losses of £245mln related to the alleged conspiracy.
German bank fine …
Britain's financial regulator has fined Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG £163mln for serious failings in relation to anti-money laundering controls.
The fine was the biggest-ever imposed by the Financial Conduct Authority or its predecessor, the Financial Services Authority.
The regulator said that inadequate controls by Deutsche Bank meant that its Russian subsidiary was able to execute more than US$6bn of so-called "mirror trades", where stocks were bought in roubles and sold at the same time in US dollars, in a manner "highly suggestive of financial crime".
UK credit slows …
The pace of consumer borrowing in the UK slowed for the first time in five months in December, an early sign that households might be reining in their spending as last year's Brexit vote pushes up inflation.
The Bank of England said consumer credit in December rose by just over £1.0bn, much less than a rise of £1.7bn forecast by economists, and down from an increase of nearly £2bn in November.
Spending by households helped Britain rack up the fastest economic growth in 2016 among the world's biggest economies, despite the shock of the vote in June to leave the European Union.
Swedish retail growth ….
UK high street stalwart, Swedish fashion retailer H&M saw its fourth-quarter pretax profit unexpectedly rise following five consecutive quarters of falling profits, up to Skr7.4bn from Skr7.2bn a year earlier.
The retailer also revealed it is dropping a decades-old store growth target in favour of a turnover-based target to reflect growing online sales.
The new target is to increase local-currency sales by 10% to 15% annually with continued high profitability.
US icon …
Snoopy and Charlie Brown could be about to change owners, according to a report on Reuters, which said US brand management firm, Iconix Brand Group Inc (NASDAQ:ICON) is exploring a sale of its majority stake in Peanuts Worldwide LLC, which owns the rights to the cartoon strip characters.
The move comes three months after US insurance company MetLife Inc (NTSE:MET) stopped using the Peanuts characters as mascots after more than 30 years .
The characters, which include Lucy, Peppermint Patty and Pigpen, have attracted the interest of Chinese companies as well as other investors keen to snap up US media and licensing assets, people familiar with the matter told the newswire.