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
Friday, August 28, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: Eric Daniels, the chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, is under pressure as shareholders want Sir Win Bischoff, the new chairman, to cull the board.
Daily Telegraph: UK business investment fell by 18.4 per cent in the second quarter, the sharpest fall in 44 years.
Financial Times: The US is standing firm against UK demands to pay up to £50 million ($80 million) in VAT on its new embassy building in south London.
Comment
Ian King in The Times: Businesses are simply not spending enough to haul the UK out of recession. Nor can consumers be relied upon to achieve this.
Damian Reece in the Daily Telegraph: Shareholders are the one body that can dictate how investment banks behave because banks won't change themselves.
Floyd Norris in the New York Times: Ten years ago, we worried about the budget outlook, and we worry today too. The difference is the nature of the worries.
Upside
The Times: The UK housing market continued to rise in August with prices rising by an average 1.6 per cent over the month.
The Daily Telegraph: The void on UK high streets left by the collapse of Woolworths has been mostly filled by pound stores and discount retailers.
The Times: Switzerland agreed to provide France with unprecedented access to accounts held by French people suspected of tax evasion.
Downside
The Times: The pound slid to a two-month low against the euro and the dollar, raising fears that gross domestic product figures will be worse than expected.
Wall Street Journal: The US banking industry continues to deteriorate, with another 111 lenders added to the list of endangered banks.
The Independent: BAE Systems, the defence contractor, failed to win the $281 million (£173 million) US government contract for armoured vehicles.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Tony Ball is the unlikely frontrunner for the chief executive's job at broadcaster ITV, as doubts emerge about his rival, Apple's Pascal Cagni.
The Independent: Three former managers at Dresdner Kleinwort will sue the investment bank to recover unpaid bonuses and severance pay.
The Times: Several leading shareholders in National Express, the private equity takeover target, want to hold out for a higher price from CVC and Spain's Cosmen family.
Around Asia
The Times: Failed rains in India have crushed consumer demand and economists are likely to downgrade their growth forecasts.
Wall Street Journal: Daimler expects strong sales in China to continue, making the nation critically important to the German car maker's global strategy.
Bloomberg: Baosteel, China's largest steelmaker, bought a 15 per cent stake in Australian iron ore and coal company Aquila Resources to secure supplies.
Look ahead
The Times: Network Rail, the rail operator, plans to cut 1,800 maintenance jobs between now and April 2011.
New York Times: The first test flight of Boeing's long-delayed 787 Dreamliner passenger plane will happen by the end of the year.
Wall Street Journal: American International Group, the embattled insurer, may wait as long as three years to sell assets to repay the US government.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 4,869.35 down 0.4% (Thursday close)
Dow 9,580.63 up 0.4% (close)
S&P 500 1,030.98 up 0.3% (close)
Nasdaq 2,027.73 up 0.2% (close)
Nikkei 10,541.51 up 0.6% (latest)
Hang Seng 20,409.13 up 0.8% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6284/1.1335 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4365 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $72.51 steady (latest)
West Texas crude $72.60 up 11 cents (latest)
Gold $950.90 up $3.60 (latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks rose as investors turned back an early sell-off. The Dow posted its eighth straight gain, led by planemaker Boeing, which rose 8.4 per cent on optimism about its 787 Dreamliner. Energy firm ConocoPhillips rose 0.3 per cent on higher oil prices. Once again, trading was dominated by a handful of troubled financial companies. Bailed-out insurer American International Group rose 27 per cent on reports it will not hold a fire sale of its assets. Citigroup rose 9.1 per cent on reports that hedge-fund manager John Paulson is buying the troubled bank's shares. Computer maker Dell rose 6.7 per cent after reporting better-than-expected results.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose in early trade, led by materials producers and technology companies. Inpex, Japan's largest oil explorer, rose 1.5 per cent and BHP Billiton, the world's biggest miner, rose 0.8 per cent on higher commodities prices. Samsung Electronics, the world's largest computer-memory chips maker, rose 1.6 per cent after computer maker Dell reported good results in the US.
Casio Computer, the maker of digital cameras and mobile phones, rose 7.7 per cent on reports it will merge its mobile phone business with NEC and Hitachi. NEC rose 0.3 per cent and Hitachi rose 1.2 per cent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.6 per cent to 113.61 in morning trade.
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
