Barclays may have to follow the seemingly unavoidable path of European banks and split. The bank’s shareholders have demanded that new CEO Antony Jenkins should let go of investment banking operations, along the lines of UBS‘ shut down of its fixed income business last month that eliminated 10,000 jobs. The Swiss bank was fined £30m by the British FSA in connection to the $2.3bn insider trading loss that Kweku Adoboli got seven years for. Of course, axing the division would help Barlcays get around ringfencing investment banking and retail operations and may therefore be desirable from a regulatory point of view. read article
All of this coincided with Qatar Holdings selling a pile of Barclays shares this morning. read article
Yesterday, Spainish region Catalonia held elections, which saw a slight reduction of seats of CiU (Convergencia i Union), the party that demands a referendum. But those seats lost, were picked up by ERC (Esquerra Republicana di Catalunya), which demands independence from Spain without a referendum and as soon as possible. Four parties in favor of separating from Spain, holding 87 of 135 seats, are now present in the Catalan parliament. Gaining independence from the Spanish mothership would neither be simple nor quick. Catalonia is contributing 7-8% of its output to the central government in Madrid, and could cause an overhaul of Spain’s fiscal politics. read article
In terms of reforms, there is a new idea from Germany’s Finance Minister, who wants to force banks to write a restructuring manual for a bankruptcy scenario. Lawyers and advisory firms just collectively ordered new cars.
Otherwise, it is Cyber Monday, which is estimated to be the biggest online shopping day of the year for the third time in a row, says the Associated Press.
In Brussels, the “Eurogroup meets for third go at kicking can down the road” and to assess Angela Merkel’s campaign strategy in conjunction with Christine Lagarde’s hopes and dreams of a Greek debt haircut.
In the week to come, we’ll get the new governor of the Bank of England (330 pm today), updated US GDP, the Spanish budget, Chinese manufacturing and all unemployment number of the rainbow, with France on Tuesday, Germany on Thursday and eurozone on Friday.
So long.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
