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
Top stories
The Times: The Shanghai stock market fell 7 per cent amid fears that the "China effect" on the global economy is about to fizzle out.
Daily Telegraph: Staff pension payments have gone missing at KeTech, the first company to be saved under the government's Capital for Enterprise rescue fund.
Financial Times: Gordon Brown, the prime minister, pledged tough action to clamp down on, and even claw back, excessive remuneration for bankers.
Comment
Carl Mortished in The Times: The cost of oil for China is now measured in refugees, in tens of thousands of people fleeing there from Burma.
Jeremy Warner in the Daily Telegraph: As the big cheeses return to their desks, we will see if recent rises have been more than an "office boys rally".
Hamish McRae in The Independent: The change of government in Japan presents it with the opportunity to again become the developed world's most dynamic economy.
Upside
The Times: Customer loyalty for Marks & Spencer improved more than any other big British retailer over the past decade, to leave it second only to Asda.
Wall Street Journal: The US government has collected about $30 billion (£18 billion) from its trillion-dollar efforts to rescue the financial system.
Financial Times: Nomura, the Japanese investment bank, will pay no rent for almost six years on its new headquarters building in the City of London.
Downside
The Times: Falling sales of Jaguar and Land Rover luxury vehicles helped push Tata Motors, the Indian conglomerate, to a quarterly loss.
Bloomberg: Brazil plans to increase state control of the oil industry in a bid to produce more oil and collect more revenue.
The Times: BT's plan to bring call centre jobs back to Britain has hit trouble because British workers do not want to cover the same hours as their Indian peers.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Disney bought Marvel Entertainment in a $4 billion (£2.5 billion) deal that will create an entertainment force as powerful as any superhero.
Financial Times: PetroChina will pay $1.7 billion (£1 billion) for a majority stake in the world's second-biggest oil reserves, two oil sands projects in Canada.
The Times: Almost 10 per cent of prospective executives have withdrawn their applications after aggressive vetting by the City watchdog.
Around Asia
The Times: Japan's stock market surged and then fell following the landmark election win by the Democratic Party of Japan.
Nikkei: Domestic car sales in Japan rose for the first time in 18 months.
Bloomberg: Mitsubishi and IHI joined a ¥2 trillion (£13 billion, $21 billion) Japanese project intending to beam solar-generated electricity from space to earth.
Look ahead
The Times: A strengthened agency to tackle financial crime could be created within the first year of a Conservative government, City lawyers believe.
Daily Telegraph: The UK commercial property market is expected to take more than five years to recover the losses endured during the present downturn.
Bloomberg: Six companies plan initial public offerings in Hong Kong in September and may raise a combined $4.8 billion (£3 billion).
Unfinished business - last week wrapped up
Last Monday
The stock market surged and investors celebrated the biggest rally in world share prices for 50 years.
Centrica, the UK energy giant, won its hostile bid for Venture Production, the oil and gas business.
Tuesday
Royal Bank of Scotland, the state-backed bank, cut the retirement benefits of more than 60,000 of its staff.
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.
Wednesday
Network Rail, the rail infrastructure company, proposed a £34 billion ($55 billion) high-speed rail line from London to Scotland.
US regulators imposed tough new restrictions on private equity firms seeking to buy failed institutions.
Thursday
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.
Switzerland agreed to provide France with unprecedented access to accounts held by French people suspected of tax evasion.
Friday
The Icelandic parliament passed the "Icesave" bill agreeing to repay more than $5.5 billion (£3.4 billion) to the British and Dutch governments.
Johnston Press, the beleaguered regional publishing group, reported a plunge in profits and a £485 million debt deal with its banks.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 4,908.90 up 0.8% (Friday close)
Dow 9,496.28 down 0.5% (Monday close)
S&P 500 1,020.62 down 0.8% (Monday close)
Nasdaq 2,009.06 down 1% (Monday close)
Nikkei 10,540.61 up 0.5% (latest)
Hang Seng 19,780.03 up 0.3% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.628/1.1355 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4338 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $69.69 up 4 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $70.01 up 5 cents (latest)
Gold $953.40 down 10 cents (latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks fell on Monday following falls in China. Energy stocks led with decline. Exxon Mobil fell 1.4 per cent and Chevron fell 1.1 per cent. Financial stocks reversed last week's rally. Citigroup fell 4.4 per cent and AIG fell 9.8 per cent on an analyst's recommendations. Marvel Entertainment rose 25.2 per cent on a buyout deal from Disney. Oil services firm BJ Services rose 4.1 per cent on a buyout from larger rival Baker Hughes. Volume again was light.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose in morning trade, led by technology and mining companies. Hon Hai Precision Industry, the world's largest contract maker of electronics, rose 6.3 per cent in Taipei on an analyst's upgrade. Samsung Electro-Mechanics, an electronic-parts maker, rose 5.5 percent in Seoul on a recommendation. Rio Tinto, the world's third-largest miner, rose 1.2 per cent and BHP, the largest, rose 0.5 per cent in Sydney after strong manufacturing growth in China. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.3 percent to 113.70 in morning trade.
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
