PRESS DIGEST - Financial Times - Nov 22
NEW STAR FLAGSHIP FUND CHIEF DEPARTS
The problems of New Star Asset Management NSAM.L continued to mount on Thursday, as the firm's joint chief investment officer Stephen Whittaker was asked to leave due to what the chairman John Duffield termed "a long period of underperformance". Mr. Whittaker had headed New Star's 343-million-pound UK Growth Fund, which has fallen 54.2 percent in value in the previous two years compared with an average 31.2 percent fall among similar funds. The company, which lost 90 percent of its share price in the previous 12 months, is looking to improve its performance by merging some of its smaller and less well-managed funds.
SCOTTISH BANKERS GIVE UP FIGHT FOR HBOS
Sir George Mathewson and Sir Peter Burt, the former chairman and chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L), have given up their plans to halt the takeover of HBOS HBOS.L by Lloyds TSB (LLOY.L) and run the bank themselves. They said a government statement earlier in the week, announcing that taxpayer-funded recapitalisation of banks would not necessarily be available to all institutions, made it clear to them that the government did not wish HBOS to remain as an independent entity. "It's very sad", said Burt. "A lot of people will lose their jobs and families will be devastated by it unnecessarily".
