Clara Furse is the Chief Executive of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and a veteran in the world of finance.

The 50-year-old investment banker started her career in the City of London almost two decades ago. She has spent most of that time working in the cutting edge world of financial derivatives, such as futures and options, and gaining a range of top jobs along the way.

Jobs included, Group Chief Executive of Credit Lyonnais Rouse from 1998 to 2000; Director of LIFFE from 1991 to 1999, and Deputy Chairman from 1997 to 1999.

She was at Phillips & Drew (now UBS) from 1983 to 1998 and became a Director in 1988, Executive Director in 1992, Managing Director in 1995, Global Head of Futures in 1996. She is a Non-Executive Director of Euroclear plc, LCH.Clearnet and RICS Foundation.

She was appointed Chief Executive of the LSE in January 2001.

Clara Furse, Chief Executuve of the London Stock Exchange, is under fire for a neat shimmy that will save her around £400,000 ($800,000) in tax.

The move transferred £5.1m ($10m) of shares in the LSE to her husband on the eve of the government’s changes to capital gains tax. It means she will pay only 10pc in CGT, instead of the new rate of 18pc which comes into force next Monday. This translates to a possible saving of £408,000 and an exposure to the new rate only on increases in the value of the shares.

Lib-Dem Treasury spokesman and political flavour of the month, Vince Cable, called it a “clever dodge”.

As the man said though, “No-one is under any obligation to help the authorities increase their take from one’s personal income”.

Bloomberg is reporting that “Carlyle Group’s publicly traded mortgage bond fund failed to pay margin calls, prompting creditors to seek immediate repayment, as the burning subprime mortgage market scorches investors in even the highest-rated debt”.

The London Stock Exchange has been criticized for missing out on some IPOs recently. Amsterdam took this one.

Looks like the LSE was wiser than its critics.

The Dubai Stock Exchange has finally signalled its willingness to sell its stake in the London Stock Exchange to Qatar. The deal would end a bitter rivalry between Dubai and Qatar over their involvement in the LSE.

The offer amounts to a stake swap between the Gulf states following Qatar’s decision to sell its holding in OMX, the Scandinavian exchange, to Dubai this month.

Essa Kazim, Borse Dubai’s chairman, commented, “If the Qatari Government wishes to strike a deal in the future, then it would be subject to negotiation.”

When the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) sold its 9.98pc stake in OMX to Dubai last week, some analysts believed that a reciprocal deal over the London exchange was off the table because Qatar had expressed no interest in acquiring Dubai’s LSE shares at the time.

In effect, Kazim said that Borse Dubai had not agreed to any deal “whatsoever”, but his comments suggest that a share sale could be negotiated.

In a complex transaction, Dubai and New York’s Nasdaq are expected to finalize a $4.9 billion (£2.5 billion) deal to buy OMX. Dubai would then pass OMX to Nasdaq in exchange for a 19.9pc stake in the new company. It would also acquire Nasdaq’s existing 28pc stake in the LSE.

Some of those shares could be sold then to Qatar, which currently owns 15pc of the LSE through $60 billion sovereign wealth fund. QIA is thought to want the stake to expand its own capital markets.