There may be a faint glimmer of progress in the Ukraine. Following a telephone conversation between the US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, a meeting which will include European and Ukrainian officials has been arranged for within the next 10 days. However, that follows the occupation of government buildings in eastern Ukraine by pro-Moscow protesters and a warning by the US to Russia against any further escalation, The Wall Street Journal Europe reports.
The Co-op Bank yesterday announced that it will report its latest figures “no later” than Friday, saying the delay would “enable the bank to finalise its accounts”. It had been expected to publish them today. This is the second time that it has postponed the release of those figures in the wake of its admission that it needed an extra £400m of capital on top of a £1.5bn cash injection this year. The lender has already announced that losses could balloon to as much as £1.3bn, The Daily Express writes.
The exit of Tesco’s (tsco) Finance Director has done little to resolve some observers’ doubts regarding the company’s management. Clive Black, at Shore Capital, has gone on record as saying that the board may need “more fundamental change”, while at the same time highlighting the fact that a succession plan is “glaringly absent”. In his opinion, part of the solution lies in the firm having executives accountable for key markets again on its board, supported by the new Chief Financial Officer, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Britain’s economy needs to rebalance if the recovery is to have a solid foundation. For the moment, however, it is still too reliant on consumer spending. That was the stark warning contained in the results of the British Chambers of Commerce's (BCC's) latest poll of thousands of UK companies. Hence the Chancellor's recent drive to reform the export finance sector in the UK, one of the least competitive in Europe, in his own words, The Scotsman reports.
The latest American unemployment report failed to convince, leading legions of investors that had been buying the shares - simply because they had been going up - to finally question the prices of some ‘momentum‘ stocks. Hence the falls seen in American technology giants such as Twitter or Facebook as investors lost their nerve, The Times says.
A new report on wages published today by consultants KPMG shows that salaries are now growing at their fastest pace in almost seven years for those taking up new jobs. The same set of data also reveals that demand for staff increased at a marked pace last month, as companies looked to step up hiring. The figures are thus suggesting that the squeeze on living standards may be coming to an end. KPMG’s gauge of average salaries awarded to new staff hit 62.2 in March, its strongest since the recession hit, The Daily Mail says.
