The annual listing of great places to work in the UK now includes Admiral in the top 10, the only business from the financial services sector to be found there.
It has been a reward for all their hardwork it seems, since Admiral also received the special status of laureate because it has been in the top 50 for the last 5 years. One of the key elements of any great place to work is trust between employees and managers, something Admiral has been commended for.
This fantastic achievement is sure to be seen as just reward for all the staff at the company whether they work in the Admiral car insurance department or any other part of the business. They have all worked together to make the organisation what it is today.
The first six months of the year has seen Northern Rock record a loss of GBP585 million, primarily through their customers being unable to meet the payments on their mortgage.
The figures provided by Northern Rock show 1.18 percent of customers are regularly missing mortgage payments, which is an increase of 300 percent compared with 12 months ago. The upshot of missed payments is arrears, with the number of people now in this state also up by around 300 percent.
The worry for everyone looking at the housing situation, not just Northern Rock, is that these arrears can turn into repossessions, especially where negative equity becomes a problem, such a situation will be affecting many homeowners who bought their house within the last two years.
Barclays saw a drop in profits of a third for the first half of the year, with write downs impacting seriously on the bottom line. Barclays Insurance though, a division of the bank, performed very well.
The bank still made profits of GBP2.75 billion despite the write downs and, even though the bank itself was disappointed, industry analysts felt this was better than could have been expected. Other financial institutions have suffered much more dramatic cuts than Barclays, insurance and other sectors helping support the bank.
Looking forwards the Barclays management team are expecting trading conditions to remain testing and are advising the market that it could be some time before they are back to previous levels of profitability. Barclays Insurance, having performed very well, may actually see some parts of it sold to bolster the balance sheet.
