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 18, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: Britain may suffer post-election blues next year, warned the John Lewis Partnership, the owner of retailers John Lewis and Waitrose.
The Independent: The top 100 world brands have lost $16 billion (£9.7 billion) of their value since 2008.
The Times: Lloyds Banking Group, the troubled bank, was ordered by the Financial Services Authority to stay in the Government's scheme for toxic assets.
Comment
David Wighton in The Times: Just because retail chiefs have been too gloomy over the past year doesn't mean we should dismiss their nervousness about 2010.
Damian Reece in The Daily Telegraph: Pulling Lloyds Banking Group out of the toxic swamp of HBOS is even more difficult than previously thought.
Hamish McRae in The Independent: Will the trend towards a more integrated world economy resume or have we passed a high point that will be hard to reach again?
Upside
The Times: PAI Partners, Europe's biggest private equity house, offered to return about €2.3 billion (£1.9 billion, $3.4 billion) to investors.
Wall Street Journal: Wealth of US households grew by 3.9 per cent in the second quarter for the first time in nearly two years.
New York Times: US housing construction rose in August to the highest level in nine months.
Downside
The Times: Terra Firma Capital Partners, the private equity firm, improved EMI's results, but may have paid too much for the troubled music company.
Reuters: US securities regulators proposed a ban on flash orders that stock exchanges send to a particular traders, just before revealing them publicly.
The Times: The European Union will seek a global deal on clawing back or cancelling bankers' bonuses at the G20 summit.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Balfour Beatty, the engineering and construction group, will buy Parsons Brinckerhoff, the US professional services company, for $626 million (£380 million).
The Daily Telegraph: Frank Timis, the chairman of African Minerals, made controversial statements about a possible takeover of his company.
The Times: Gale Norton, a former US Cabinet member, faces an investigation over her support of oil-shale exploration by Royal Dutch Shell, her current employer.
Around Asia
The Times: India agreed for the first time to set targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, wrong-footing the US and other rich nations.
New York Times: The Bank of Japan kept interest rates on hold and upgraded its assessment of the nation's economy.
Wall Street Journal: Profit at Temasek Holdings, the Singapore state-owned investment fund, fell 67 per cent last year.
Look ahead
The Independent: The British economy should return to growth within the next six to nine months, according to a senior policymaker at the Bank of England.
The Times: Consultation on introducing universal workplace retirement schemes, which will begin in October, was cut from three months to six weeks.
The Independent: Commercial aircraft with a total value of $3.1 trillion (£1.9 trillion) will be made over the next two decades, predicts Airbus, the plane maker.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 5,163.95 up 0.8% (Thursday close)
Dow 9,783.92 down 0.1% (close)
S&P 500 1,065.49 down 0.3% (close)
Nasdaq 2,126.75 down 0.3% (close)
Nikkei 10,315.41 down 1.2% (latest)
Hang Seng 21,704.52 down 0.3% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.638/1.1136 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4709 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $71.31 down 24 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $72.05 down 42 cents (latest)
Gold $1013.50 steady (latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks slipped on concern recent gains were overextended despite solid economic data. Shares in the financial and energy sectors lost ground. American Express fell 2.3 per cent and Exxon Mobil fell 0.7 per cent. On the Nasdaq, software maker Oracle fell 2.8 per cent on disappointing results. American Airlines parent AMR rose 19.7 per cent on reports it had raised $2.9 billion. Shipping company FedEx fell 2.2 per cent on disappointing results.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks fell in early trade, dragging the MSCI Asia Pacific Index from a one-year high. Aiful, Japan's third-largest consumer lender by revenue, had yet to trade though was bid lower by 27 per cent after it sought to reschedule its debt payments. Takefuji, the Japanese consumer finance company, fell 11 per cent on an analyst's downgrade. Rival Promise fell 12 per cent and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, which holds a stake in Promise, fell 2.7 per cent. BHP Billiton, the world's largest miner, fell 1.4 per cent, and rival Rio Tinto fell 1.4 per cent on lower metals prices. The MSCI Asia Pacific fell 0.8 per cent to 117.89 in morning trade.
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
