— Tara Loader Wilkinson 27 August 2009 – Press Briefing Belgian billionaire Albert Frere is planning a $1.6m (€1.1m) auction of more than 3,000
bottles of Bordeaux and Champagne on September 23 to boost the Charles-Albert Frere Foundation, a charity named for his deceased son, according to a Bloomberg report. Sotheby’s will conduct the London event for Frere, who has a net worth of $2.4bn as per Forbes’ 2009 listing of the world’s billionaires. Banks have never been shy of firing staff at the merest whiff of a downturn. First the fat, then the muscle and finally the bone. In the past, cuts have been so deep that firms have found it hard to benefit when the markets rebounded, paying over the odds to restaff at speed. Such wild oscillations in staffing numbers are known as “doing a Merrillâ€. French banks agreed to penalise traders who lose money for their firms after getting a bonus and to limit other payouts as part of a government effort to trigger a global clampdown on financial-sector salaries. 2nd Floor, Stapleton House, 29-33 Scrutton Street, London, EC2A 4HU
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