KILL THE COMPETITION
Welcome to today's round-up of business news from The Times: what we're saying, what they're saying, from Michael Beh
Wednesday, August 26, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: The UK Government is ready to commit up to £500 million ($815 million) to the best plan to save jobs at Vauxhall, which General Motors may sell.
Daily Telegraph: Royal Bank of Scotland, the state-backed bank, cut the retirement benefits of more than 60,000 of its staff.
The Times: Optimism grew as US house prices showed the first signs of life for three years and Ben Bernanke was reappointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Comment
Ian King in The Times: In the game for General Motors' European arm, Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, has the worst cards but is playing the best hand.
Damian Reece in the Daily Telegraph: Ben Bernanke's new powers will be wasted unless he breaks with the past and adopts a new, more vigilant role.
Stephen Roach in the Financial Times: We need central bankers who avoid problems, not those like Ben Bernanke who specialise in post-crisis damage control.
Upside
The Times: Regus, the world's biggest provider of outsourced office space, lifted revenue by 10 per cent as more start-up businesses sought cheap premises.
The Independent: Persimmon, Britain's biggest housebuilder, increased the value of its land bank despite first-half profits falling 73 per cent.
The Times: Gulf Keystone Petroleum, the UK-listed oil minnow, said its Iraqi oil prospect's yield may be double previous estimates; its shares rose 70 per cent.
Downside
The Times: French banks have proposed penalising traders for losses they make to balance the bonuses they receive on profits.
The Times: The Government plans to strip millions of public sector workers of their "gold-standard" final-salary pensions to deal with massive shortfalls.
The Times: Interbank interest rates are easing towards an all-time low, but the savings are not being passed on to business and consumers.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Hassan Nemazee, a major fundraiser for the Democrats, was charged with trying to defraud Citigroup, the US bank, of $74 million (£45 million).
Financial Times: Yahoo bought Maktoob, the largest Arabic-language web portal which reaches 16.5 million users a month, for an undisclosed price.
Reuters: PartyGaming, the British online gaming group, will buy US-based gaming firm WPT Enterprises, known as World Poker Tour, for $12.3 million (£7.5 million).
Around Asia
The Times: China will boost its economic ties to the Burmese military government with a $5.6 billion (£3.4 billion) gas project in the Bay of Bengal.
Daily Telegraph: Temasek, the Sinaporean state investment vehicle, will become a more active investor, signally a shift among sovereign wealth funds.
Bloomberg: Japan's export slump deepened in July, indicating the boost in demand that helped pull the country out of recession last quarter may be short-lived.
Look ahead
Wall Street Journal: Many analysts expect the dollar to strengthen in coming months but are concerned about its long-term influence.
Financial Times: UK employers still face a skills shortage that could hamper recovery, even as unemployment rises towards 3 million.
Reuters: The US Postal Service, the nation's second-largest employer, wants to buy out the jobs of up to 30,000 staff by the end of next month.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 4,916.80 up 0.4% (Tuesday close)
Dow 9,539.29 up 0.3% (close)
S&P 500 1,028.00 up 0.2% (close)
Nasdaq 2,024.23 up 0.3% (close)
Nikkei 10,556.02 up 0.6% (latest)
Hang Seng 20,537.66 up 0.5% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6321/1.1420 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4292 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $71.29 down 53 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $71.57 down 48 cents (latest)
Gold $946.70 up 70 cents (latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks rose as economic data and the renomination of Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke reassured investors. Women's clothing retailer Chico rose 7.6 per cent on solid results, close-out retailer Big-Lots rose 6.5 per cent and department store chain Macy's rose 3.5 per cent on consumer confidence. Among home builders, Lennar rose 2.8 per cent, KB Home rose 3.3 per cent and Pulte Homes rose 3.5 per cent. Exxon Mobil fell 0.9 per cent and Murphy Oil fell 2.6 per cent on lower oil prices.
