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, September 4, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: The Spanish-led consortium bidding for National Express increased its offer to £765 million ($1.25 billion); it also sold its UK bus and rail divisions to Stagecoach.
The Times: Jon Moulton quit early as head of Alchemy Partners, then lambasted his replacement Dominic Slade.
The Times: CBI boss Richard Lambert stood up for the City, giving the FSA chairman a dressing-down over his assertion that some City activity was "socially useless".
Comment
David Wighton in The Times: OECD sages believe prospects for the UK, alone among the G7 group of industrialised nations, have worsened since June.
Jeremy Warner in Daily Telegraph: There's no reason to get too depressed by the OECD's take on Britain.
James Moore in The Independent: Customer complaints in the financial services sector are running at a staggering level.
Upside
Financial Times: World leaders set out the first steps toward withdrawing emergency support for the global economy even though they warned the crisis was not over.
The Times: Britain's services sector enjoyed its fastest growth for almost two years in August, reinforcing hopes the economy was pulling out of recession.
Bloomberg: Alcoa raised its 2009 forecast for global aluminium consumption because of demand triggered by China's stimulus spending.
Downside
The Times: Job losses feared with EasyJet to cut up to a fifth of its flights from Luton in a focus shift to Gatwick and continental airports.
The Times: Nine million formal customer complaints about the UK financial services industry in the past three years; scale of customer dissatisfaction worsening.
The Times: City law firm SJ Berwin delayed paying partners their share of profits for six months.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: HMV to buy a 50 per cent stake in 7digital to lift its presence in the growing online music and books market.
Daily Telegraph: Pernod Ricard, the French spirits maker, predicted another tough year for the drinks industry with no pick-up in demand until 2010.
The Independent: Oracle faced a EU competition inquiry into its proposed $7.4 billion (£4.5 billion) takeover of Sun Microsystems.
Around Asia
New York Times: China relented on a proposed export ban of vital minerals dysprosium and terbium but said it would tightly regulate production.
New York Times: Japan's Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma buying drug maker Sepracor for $2.6 billion (£1.6 billion) to tap sales in the US.
Financial Times: The founder of Mengniu Dairy, China's largest milk producer, replaced as chairman of its main subsidiary by a state-appointed executive.
Look ahead
The Times: RBS and Lloyds in talks with landlords to co-own billions of pounds in repossessed development projects and buildings.
Daily Telegraph: Amazon warned a US judge that Google would stifle competition and break anti-trust laws if allowed to add millions of titles to its digital library.
Bloomberg: Toyota faced a patent-infringement claim that may result in a US import ban on its Prius and other hybrid models.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 4,796.75 down 0.4% (Thursday close)
Dow 9,344.61 up 0.7% (close)
S&P 500 1,003.24 up 0.9% (close)
Nasdaq 1,983.20 up 0.8% (close)
Nikkei 10,231.92 up 0.2% (latest)
Hang Seng 19,761.68 up 1.2% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6308/1.1451 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4242 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $67.28 up 16 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $68.12 up 16 cents (latest)
Gold $992 down $5.70(latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks rose on Thursday, snapping a four-day losing streak, after stronger-than-expected retail sales data eased concerns about the economy. Financials and retail stocks were among the day's leaders, with Bank of America up 3.5 per cent and Citigroup up 4.8 per cent. Among retailers posting higher-than-expected sales in August were Costco Wholesale and Target. Costco, which was upgraded by JPMorgan, climbed 8.6 per cent while Target gained 1.7 per cent. On the downside, credit rating agency Moody's Corp and McGraw-Hill, the parent of credit ratings firm Standard & Poor's, slid after a judge ruled the two companies must defend fraud charges in a class-action lawsuit. McGraw-Hill dropped 10.2 per cent while Moody's shed 7.1 per cent.
Asia
Bloomberg: Japan's exporters climbed in morning trade as US retailers reported higher-than-forecast sales, while Daiwa Securities led brokerages lower on venture buyout. Canon, the world's largest maker of digital cameras, rose 0.9 per cent, Sharp rose 0.6 per cent and Mitsui, Japan's second-largest trading company, advanced 1 per cent as UBS AG recommended buying the stock. Toshiba, the world's second-biggest maker of flash memory chips, added 0.4 per cent after its management said it would will focus on improving profitability in its chip business. Daiwa slumped 5 per cent after the Nikkei newspaper said the brokerage would buy out Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group's stake in a joint venture while Nomura, Daiwa's larger rival, slumped 2.3 per cent.
Myles McIvor
mjclub@bigpond.com.au
