Telegraph.co.uk – When Andy Hornby, the former chief executive of HBOS, was asked by the Treasury Select Committee to detail his banking qualifications he couldn’t. Like his fellow bankers, Sir Fred Goodwin, Sir Tom McKillop and Lord Stevenson, being questioned by the panel, Mr Hornby, had to admit publicly that he held no formal banking qualifications. However unlike his fellow bankers, Mr Hornby’s admission held one important qualification.

"I have an MBA from Harvard," he told the MPs, "where I specialised in all the finance courses including financial services."

With the question about qualifications almost certain to come up, Mr Hornby’s answer was almost certainly prepared. By referring not just to his MBA, but also to where he got it from, Mr Hornby knew he was putting himself firmly at the front of the pedagogical pecking order. Harvard prides itself on consistently being the highest-ranked university; Mr Hornby no doubt prides himself on being the highest-achieving student out of his year, coming top out of 800 peers.

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Tags: admission, chief-executive, fellow, finance courses, financial-services, fred goodwin, harvard, hbos, mba, no doubt, pecking order, peers, sir fred, sir tom, telegraph, tom mckillop, treasury select committee

guardian.co.uk – A hedge fund admitted yesterday it had been speculating that shares in Barclays would fall. The admission by Lansdowne Partners that it had been shorting Barclays shares on Friday – a day when the bank lost a quarter of its value – came amid concern that hedge funds could be blamed for the dramatic slide in bank shares yesterday.

Hedge funds have to disclose any short positions – where they sell shares they do not own in the hope of buying them back at a lower price to make a profit – but are no longer banned from the practice after a change to the Financial Services Authority’s rules at the end of last week.

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Tags: admission, barclays, dramatic slide, financial-services-authority, guardian, lansdowne partners