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This is London – It also led many in the City to believe the Bank favours a weak currency, prompting a series of downbeat forecasts today. “I’m super bearish on the pound,” said Hans-Guenter Redeker, the London-based head of foreign exchange at BNP Paribas.
“The Bank of England has made it clear it can’t afford a stronger currency.” He forecast the pound would fall to $1.50 in 12 months.
John Taylor, chief executive of New York hedge fund FX Concepts, said sterling will “get crushed” and sink as low as $1.45 in the coming months.
“The fundamentals in the UK are certainly not pretty,” he said. “It’s a race for the least ugly of the candidates, and I would argue that the US is going to be the least ugly for a while.” Others were more upbeat and said the measures taken by the Bank and the Government to ease the slowdown will boost sterling. HSBC predicted the pound would rise to $1.75 by the end of next year — midway between the high of $2.12 in November 2007 and the low of $1.38 in March this year.
Bloomberg – Credit Suisse Group AG, the largest Swiss bank by market value, hired Trevor Randolph from BNP Paribas Securities as a senior sales executive for its fund- linked products unit, a person familiar with the matter said.
Randolph, 36, will be a director and report to Jeff Jaenicke and Walter Rotondo, global head of fund-linked products at the Zurich-based company, said the person, who declined to be identified because the hire hasn’t been announced.
Boston Globe – French bank BNP Paribas’s revenues from corporate and investment banking nearly doubled in the second quarter as robust investor demand boosted revenues from the bank’s fixed income business unit.
BNP Paribas’s CIB revenues totaled 3.351 billion euros ($4.82 billion) for the quarter, up 81 percent from the second quarter of 2008, and following record revenues of 3.696 billion euros in the first quarter of 2009.
”Once again, fixed income revenues were exceptional,” said David Thebault, head of quantitative sales trading, at Global Equities, in Paris.
Forbes – In December, Forbes was a media partner to Markets Media, host of the Global Markets Summit inNew York City. Forbes Intelligent Investing Editor Michael Maiello moderated a hedge fund industry panel that included activist investors Clay Lifflander of Millcap Advisors and Stephen Roseman of Thesis Capital, along with Samuel Hocking, global head of sales for the prime brokerage at BNP Paribas and Kenneth Springer of Corporate Resolutions.
During the discussion, Hocking predicted a 30% failure rate for hedge funds in 2009, rising operating costs and higher margin requirements. Lifflander and Roseman discussed strategies for low-margin investing and the implication of hedge fund failures on shareholder activist strategies. Springer, a former FBI investigator and due diligence expert, revealed the increased scrutiny that hedge fund managers will have to bear.
Bloomberg – Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc led gains for European banking stocks on speculation that demand for its rights offer is strong and a U.K. hedge fund is buying shares to push for a breakup.
Edinburgh-based RBS, Britain’s second-biggest bank, rose 8.3 percent to 244.75 pence in London trading. Investors are speculating that the bank’s 12 billion-pound ($23.6 billion) rights offering is succeeding and that hedge fund TCI Fund Management LLP is building a position, said MF Global Securities Ltd. analyst Simon Maughan.
“The rumor in the market is that TCI is taking a stake of about 1 percent and is agitating for a breakup of Royal Bank,” said Maughan, who has a “sell” rating on the stock. “They’ve made a series of strategic errors,” and shareholders would gain if RBS’s investment bank were split off, he said.
RBS is raising cash and selling assets to shore up capital depleted by the acquisition of ABN Amro Holding NV and credit- related writedowns. It declined to comment on TCI, the London- based hedge fund that helped trigger the sale of ABN Amro, or investor response to the offering, which closes June 6 and is underwritten by Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch & Co. and UBS AG.
RBS is offering 11 new shares at 200 pence apiece for every 18 existing shares to help lift its capital ratios. It also is trying to sell its insurance arm for about 7 billion pounds as well as its Angel Trains Ltd. railway leasing company and consumer-banking operations in Australia and New Zealand.
