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
Tuesday, September 8, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: Kraft, the US snackfood giant, will continue to pursue Cadbury after the UK chocolate brand rejected a £10.2 billion ($16.7 billion) takeover bid.
Daily Telegraph: The United Nations wants a new global currency to replace the US dollar as the world's reserve currency.
The Times: Deutsche Telekom, the owner of T-Mobile, will pursue a joint venture in the UK with Orange that would create the nation's biggest mobile provider.
Comment
David Wighton in The Times: Kraft has some scope to offer more for Cadbury and if it doesn't there must be a very good chance that somebody else will.
Damian Reece in The Times: The takeover proposal from Kraft simply highlights its weaknesses and Cadbury's strengths.
Matthew Lynn on Bloomberg: It doesn't take much to get the British excited about house prices again, but they should gird themselves for a double dip.
Upside
The Times: Whitbread, the Premier Inn and Costa coffee shop operator, rose 18 per cent on strong profits but its chief executive says the recovery has not yet begun.
Daily Telegraph: Primark, the discount fashion retailer, defied the high-street downturn and boosted results for its parent, Associated British Foods.
Financial Times: Mexico will earn a record $8 billion (£5 billion) through financial contracts to hedge against lower oil prices in the past year.
Downside
The Times: Landlords are increasingly selling homes they had been stuck with in the falling market, reducing supply and creating upward pressure on rents.
The Independent: Retail sales slipped back in August after two months of robust growth, sparking fears over the strength of a recovery in consumer spending.
The Times: Google will withdraw books still for sale in Europe from its US online market and is seeking a deal with European publishers and authors.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: National Express wants to sell its UK bus and rail franchises to rival Stagecoach to save it from a takeover by CVC, the private equity firm.
New York Times: Warren Buffett, the legendary investor, fears the stock market may falter again and is investing more money on corporate and government debt.
The Times: Lufthansa, the German flag carrier, invited its rivals to conduct limited due diligence on bmi, the British airline, before a possible sale.
Around Asia
The Times: Plans by the incoming Japanese Government to scrap the privatisation of the Post Office could expose the nation to fiscal collapse, analysts warn.
Wall Street Journal: China officially encouraged its state-owned companies to challenge foreign banks over huge losses from derivative contracts.
New York Times: Kai-Fu Lee, who last week quit as the head of Google China, has raised $115 million (£70 million) to finance high-tech start-ups in China.
Look ahead
Daily Telegraph: Northern Rock chairman Ron Sandler is expected to become the new executive chairman of insurance group Pearl later this month.
Financial Times: Pret A Manger, the UK sandwich chain, aims to have 26 stores in New York and Washington DC by the end of the year despite US sales falling 10 per cent.
Reuters: OPEC ministers meeting in Vienna this week are expected to keep supply targets intact and instead rely on hoped-for economic growth to lift oil prices.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 4,933.18 up 1.7% (Monday close)
Dow 9,441.27 up 1% (Friday close, market closed Monday for Labor Day)
S&P 500 1,016.40 up 1.3% (Friday close, market closed Monday for Labor Day)
Nasdaq 2,018.78 up 1.8% (Friday close, market closed Monday for Labor Day)
Nikkei 10,317.19 steady (latest)
Hang Seng 20,766.99 up 0.7% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6325/1.1392 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4330 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $66.96 up 43 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $68.23 up 23 cents (latest)
Gold $998.90 up $2.20 (latest)
New York
Reuters: Closed for Labor Day holiday.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose in morning trade as Australian business confidence jumped to the highest in almost six years and computer memory prices rose. National Australia Bank rose 3.3 per cent in Sydney. Elpida Memory, Japan's largest maker of dynamic random access memory, rose 2.7 per cent. BHP Billiton, the world's largest miner, rose 1.4 per cent on higher metals prices. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.4 per cent to 114.64 in morning trade.
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
London
Burberry's famous check came into vogue in the City last night after the stock won promotion to the FTSE 100 for the first time.
Shares in the luxury goods group rose 3.5 per cent before it was confirmed as London's latest blue chip after the market closed, which will make it the new must-have of plenty of tracker funds. Burberry will replace Thomson Reuters, the news and financial data group, which is delisting its shares in London in order to simplify its capital structure and eliminate the persistent discount at which the London shares have traded to its North American shares.
News of Burberry's promotion came after the FTSE 100 soared 81.48 points to 4,933.18, driven by Cadbury. Shares in the confectionery group climbed 38 per cent to lead the index after it rejected a sensational multibillion-dollar bid from Kraft, the huge US food group. The revelation fuelled hopes of several other big-money deals and sparked suggestions that the days of massive mergers and acquisitions were back.
Peter Stiff
Peter.Stiff@the-times.co.uk
