Buddah Lineage

The arrest of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in connection with a sexual assault in New York risks throwing the French presidential race in disarray. Strauss-Kahn is seen as the strongest potential challenger to conservative and unpopular President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012 presidential elections. Strauss-Kahn has not announced his candidacy but was expected to seek the Socialist Party nomination. Political rivals expressed shock after his arrest in New York. Far right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said his presidential bid was doomed. Socialist adversary Segolene Royal urged prudence pending further investigation. Ally Jean-Marie Le Guen said the sexual assault claim sounded nothing like Strauss-Kahn. Le Guen recently suggested the IMF chief was the subject of a smear campaign.  

This kind of cover is expensive and tends to be difficult, if not impossible, to claim on, meaning it is often a complete waste of money. The only people to benefit are the banks and other financial providers who make billions of pounds a year from selling it. PPI is supposed to help people with credit card debt, loans and other borrowing if they can't keep up their payments because of job- loss or illness. But many of those sold policies don't understand how costly it will be, or that they won't be able to claim if they are self- employed, part-time or contract worker, or if they have a pre- existing medical condition. Many who are eligible to claim think they will receive enough cash to clear their borrowing. In fact, PPI only covers their monthly payments for a maximum of a year. After that, the debt is their responsibility again, regardless of whether they can afford it. Other customers don't even know PPI has been added to their credit agreement until they spot it ...

They told home owners they were “not confident” that they could lower arrears and repossessions as successfully as last year. In 2010, the number of repossessions dropped to 36,300 compared with 47,700 the previous year, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders. Measures taken by banks and the Government to ensure people were only evicted from their homes as ‘a last resort’ ensured levels for 2010 were lower than forecast amid the fallout from the recession. But lenders expect numbers to increase again this year to 40,000, the same level as 2008 during the height of the credit crisis. The CML blamed the expected rise on a weak economy, Government cuts, the rising cost of living and possible interest rate rises.  

Credit Suisse says a 130 million Swiss franc ($147.8 million) hit to pretax profit at its private banking unit, due to the Swiss franc’s strength, is hiding progress from the money-management unit, the growth of which is key to investors in the stock. The private bank is grappling with a Swiss franc which has been persistently strong against the euro and U.S. dollar, ultimately putting private bank targets set by Chief Executive Brady Dougan into question just a few short months after they were scaled back. While the franc was largely steady against the euro in the quarter, the Swiss currency strengthened roughly 5% against the U.S. dollar. That meant pain for Credit Suisse and other private banks. With a pretax unit margin of 26% in the first quarter, Credit Suisse’s private bank is far from its 30% target, which was lowered from 40% in February. The currency hit is one all Swiss private banks are taking, and Credit Suisse’s much smaller rival EFG International Wednes...

"Revenues are growing at a good pace throughout the group and in Spain reversed the downward trend of recent quarters. I am convinced that this change will continue in the coming months," Chairman Emilio Botin said in a statement. While analysts agreed that things looked better in Santander's home market, they said it would be a while before Spain is out of the woods. The country has been a focus of market attention since a property crash unleashed high personal debt levels and high unemployment. Santander's profit in Spain, which accounts for less than Brazil or Britain at the geographically diversified bank, fell 31 percent year-on-year but rose by 54.3 percent quarter-on-quarter. "These are basically solid results and I think this quarter will be the worst in terms of comparables because after the weakness of 2010, revenues will be more stable," said Arturo de Frias, analyst at Evolution Securities. "Spain will start to look better in terms of profit...

New chief executive Bob Diamond, is planning to sell assets, reshape the bank and slash costs to boost profitability. The bank said on Wednesday that it was on track to achieve £500m of cost savings this year. Barclays reported a pretax profit of £1.66bn for the January-March period, just below forecasts. Adjusted profit, stripping out movement in its own credit, was £2bn, up 10 per cent on the year. Its Barclays Capital investment bank arm contributed underlying profit of £1.3bn, down 15 per cent on a year ago, as top-line income came in at £3.3bn, down from £3.8bn a year ago and just below expectations. Income from its fixed income business fell 22 per cent from a bumper first quarter a year ago, offsetting an 11 per cent rise in equities and 10 per cent rise in advisory income. The bank said trading in April had been in line with first quarter trends and it was content with current forecasts for 2011, which expect profits to rise to about £7b...

Sir Fred Goodwin Backbench Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming has sent a copy of the injunction to the Treasury select  committee for consideration. Mr Hemming used parliamentary privilege to reveal the existence of the draconian gagging order on the floor of the Commons last month. Sir Fred led RBS to near collapse in 2008 when it was bailed out by the government in a move that has so far cost the taxpayer £45billion. He has obtained a super-injunction to stop the  reporting of a separate personal matter, the  details of which cannot currently be published. Mr Hemming said: ‘I recognise that there is an issue to be looked at and that the committee may feel that  questions need to be asked as to whether this is relevant in any way to the collapse of RBS.’ He told Metro: ‘They may want to publish it. It’s not up to me.’ On Tuesday, Liberal Democrat Lord Oakeshott used parliamentary privilege to put down a question in the House of Lord...