Credit Suisse may conduct CHF 4bn ($4.18bn) capital raise
Analysts believe that the new CEO of Credit Suisse, Tidjane Thiam, may seek to conduct a CHF 4bn ($4.2bn) capital raising before Autumn. However, the bank's fifth-largest shareholder, Harris Associates, is not keen, suggesting that Credit Suisse shouldn't just take the "easy way out".
H e’s barely got his feet under the table at Credit Suisse but the new boss, former Pru chief Tidjane Thiam, won’t have much of a honeymoon if comments from one leading shareholder are anything to go by.

Analysts believe Thiam could go for a Swfr4 billion (£2.7 billion) fundraising before the autumn but Harris Associates, the company’s fifth-biggest shareholder, doesn’t sound keen to cough up.

Chief investment officer David Herro said: “There have been all these whispers about a capital raise; let’s try to do without a capital raise. Let’s just try to squeeze the business a little harder. Let’s not take the easy way out. Let’s sweat it a bit.”

Central bank groupies are phoning it in

Tory MP Mark Garnier got a surprise at the Treasury Select Committee yesterday when he was grilling Bank of England Governor Mark Carney.

“Rather cheeky whistle coming from behind you, Governor — not quite sure what that was,” Garnier he exclaimed.

Alas, it wasn’t a central bank groupie wolf-whistling the George Clooney lookalike but the irritating text message alert from someone’s phone in the committee room.

Shame.

Twitter hacker taking the rise

Another day, another Twitter victim.

Hot on the heels of Andrew Sentance, spare a thought for poor old Ishaq Siddiqi, macro analyst at financial data firm FactSet.

His account was hacked, leaving adverts for Viagra before every genuine Tweet he made.

“HELP! I’ve been hacked,” the analyst wrote on the micro-blogging site.

It didn’t stop the Twitter fan from posting, however. One post had City Spy in fits: “Buy Viagra your-sex-pharmacy.com. After all-night talks, Greece finally gets a new bailout deal.”

As Spy reported yesterday, Bank of England rate-setter Sentance’s Twitter account was hacked recently and the words “legs and pussy” appeared under his name.

Rent for Spaced flat goes through the roof

It’s enough to make you weep.

In cult TV show Spaced, now getting a re-airing on the Standard’s sister TV channel London Live, characters Tim And Daisy — aka Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson — move into a flatshare as virtual strangers in north London, paying a bargain £90 a week for the “spacious two-bedroom apartment” in Tufnell Park.

But check out estate agent TMD Properties’ website.

The Carleton Road flat is now on the rental market for £460 a week. It’s practically turning into banker country.