Good morning and welcome to AccountingWEB’s round up of news and hot topics.
Greece teeters on the brink
The threat of legal action looms over creditor powers as default day has finally arrived for Greece.
Greece owes €1.55bn to the International Monetary Fund and at midnight tonight it's second bail-out programme is also due to expire.
Tsipras’ embattled government is promising not to make its obligation to the fund, and creditors have refused to extend the country's bail-out for a month as it is due to hold a referendum thi weekend.
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Finance firms suffer staff shortage
British finance firms want to hire more workers this year, but almost all say finding the right staff is a challenge, says recruiters Robert Half.
It found 52% of firms in the sector want to increase their headcount this year, above the average of 47% across the rest of professional services.
Around 90% of company finance chiefs also say they are optimistic about economic growth over the next year and 88% believe this will help their companies grow, reports The Telegraph.
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Tate & Lyle FD handed £700,000 after poor year
Tate & Lyle has given its new FD Nick Hampton £700,000 in shares after the company’s poor performance made it unlikely he would collect the full share bonus he had expected when he joined the business.
Hampton was hired from PepsiCo in June and Tate & Lyle promised to buy him out from his existing pay deal by handing him £2.6m in shares, which had performance criteria attached, says The Guardian.
A portion of the two-part share award - worth up to £1.4m - was linked to the company’s returns to shareholders. The share price has fallen since he joined, the company has now replaced those £1.4m of performance-linked shares with another award of £700,000, which do not appear to be subject to performance criteria.
Hampton joined the board just weeks before a profits warning on 23 September.