Business Comment

James Moore: It'll be tough to make RSA deal add up

Outlook Royal & Sun Alliance was crowing to other insurers yesterday after it claimed to have "eliminated" the risk from 55 per cent of its final salary pension scheme with the aid of a deal with Rothesay Life, a pension buyout company. These beasts were very much in vogue a couple of years back, when it seemed that every unemployed life insurance executive and investment banker on the block was trying to join the party.

Inside Business Comment

James Moore: Staff must be in to dig BA out of its hole

Wednesday, 15 July 2009

Outlook It is hard to remember any time during the past few years when British Airways hasn't been in the thick of one crisis or another. But past troubles pale in comparison to the hole the company finds itself in today. All the various "stakeholders" seem to know it too. That is perhaps why the expected bloodletting at yesterday's annual meeting failed to materialise and; while the unions offered a little theatre outside with a colourful demo and cages full of lemmings, nobody is talking about strikes.

James Moore: Cheers to Young's pubs

Wednesday, 15 July 2009

Outlook It's time to raise a glass to the pubs group Young's. It wasn't that long ago that the owner of more than 200 of this country's more convivial hostelries was being criticised for having an "inefficient balance sheet". One particularly unkind soul in the analyst community once went as far as to describe said balance sheet as "flabby".

James Moore: Friends just says 'no'

Tuesday, 14 July 2009

Outlook: Cowdery's Resolution made institutional investors a fortune and they hope he can repeat the trick.

James Moore: Sunshine that hides clouds over retailing

Tuesday, 14 July 2009

Outlook: Consumers are still shying away from big-ticket purchases

James Moore: UKFI keeps mum where it matters

Tuesday, 14 July 2009

Outlook: Investors will run a mile if they think UKFI is being used to turn its investments into instruments of goverment policy

Econoblog: 'Business as usual' for bankers

Tuesday, 14 July 2009

Like the Bourbons, the bankers seem to learn nothing and forget nothing. With $6.65bn set aside for pay and bonuses in the quarter - an average of $226,000 per employee - they have certainly not forgotten their bonus culture, and they have learned nothing from the searing experience of the past few months.