City Insider: Rob Terry invests in Daniel Stewart

Daniel Stewart: Reversal of fortune

Time to take a hard look at Daniel Stewart, the City broker. A day after Quindell founder Rob Terry, pictured above, revealed a 7.4 per cent stake in the company, its former CEO Adam Wilson sold his stake in the company to below the 3 per cent disclosure level. Why is Mr Terry backing the troubled broker? "I must be missing something here," says a rival. "All that's left is a few highly paid people and a dull list of corporate clients."

Mr Terry and Daniel Stewart certainly share similar views on corporate governance (or lack of). Mr Terry was ousted as chairman of controversial claims-processing business Quindell in December after admitting he had sold stock as part of a deal initially described as a loan to buy shares. That month Daniel Stewart lost its licence to act as a nominated adviser - because of poor corporate governance. Mr Terry has several bones to pick with some of Daniel Stewart's rivals. He fell out with Quindell's former house broker Canaccord Genuity and barred a Numis analyst from Quindell meetings. So maybe his stake in Daniel Stewart is a favour to the broker. It helped Quindell list and raise cash. Most brokers raise money for their clients. At Daniel Stewart, it looks like the reverse.

Barclays: Boot camp for bankers

In the ongoing battle to bring staff into line, Barclays has been on the hunt for an army of new compliance staff. Quite literally. Given the dearth of obvious candidates for 200 vacancies, it has gone for a bulk hiring approach. Next month it is holding a mass recruitment day in the US, attended by ranks of military personnel. Like banks everywhere it now needs to hire record numbers of compliance staff to help implement new rules and clean up after old misdemeanours. Barclays has a bigger job than most on its hands, what with all that mis-selling (payment protection insurance, interest rate swaps), market fixing (Libor, foreign exchange) and questionable activities in the Middle East (Qatar, Saudi Arabia). Sounds like the perfect job for a tough drill sergeant.

Lord Mervyn Davies: Enter the dragon

Lord Mervyn Davies of Abersoch has many roles, among them chairman of sports marketing group Chime Communications. The City grandee (and corporate governance stickler) is also vice-chairman of Teneo Holdings, one of Chime's competitors.

In the long bio of Lord Davies on each of their sites, neither has thought to mention his involvement in its rival. His other positions - including former CEO and chairman of StanChart - are paraded. Perhaps a tie-up between Teneo and Chime is planned. Meanwhile, on Lord Davies' web page for the House of Lords, it claims his name is Evan Davies. Looks like it has mixed him up with the veteran BBC journalist. Or perhaps Mervyn is eyeing a career in the Dragons' Den.

KPMG: Sikhing justice

Tricky audits are one problem for KPMG. Religious crusades are quite another. During the firm's administration of Sikh businessman Hardial Bhabra's TV production company 11 years ago, sacred scriptures were allegedly lost. Now the Sikh Council UK and the Sikh former Labour government minister Parmjit Dhanda have added their voices to a growing campaign. They are planning a big demonstration outside KPMG's London offices, and demanding to know either what happened to the artefacts or their immediate return. Calling all relic hunters.

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