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
Wednesday, September 30, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, said banking executives would be banned from holding directorships if they overpaid themselves and their workers.
The Daily Telegraph: The pound strengthened after the Bank of England said it had no immediate intention of lowering the rate on banks' reserves.
The Times: City regulators ordered banks and loan companies that sell payment protection insurance to improve their handling of customer complaints.
Comment
David Wighton in The Times: Is the weakness in business lending due to a lack of demand or a lack of supply? A new government body may work out who is right.
Damian Reece in The Daily Telegraph: There is an apparent over reaction to the Bank of England's increasingly numerous remarks about the currency.
Martin Wolf in The Financial Times: Where we are now is intolerable. Today's concentrations of state-insured private wealth and power must surely go.
Upside
The Times: The US agreed to loosen its control of the internet, giving other countries a greater say in how the web is run.
Wall Street Journal: BNP Paribas, the French bank, will launch a €4.3 billion (£3.9 billion, $6.28 billion) rights issue to repay the French government.
The Times: Vodafone, the mobile phone provider, won the right to sell Apple's iPhone in the UK from 2010.
Downside
Wall Street Journal: CIT Group, the large commercial lender, prepared a plan that would likely hand control of the company to its bondholders.
New York Times: Ontario, the Canadian province, filed a lawsuit seeking to recover smoking-related health costs from several tobacco companies.
Wall Street Journal: Institutional investors in private-equity property funds are forcing managers to hand over responsibility to new managers.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Bill Winters, one of London's best-known investment bankers, abruptly left JPMorgan, the investment bank, after losing out in a succession battle.
Reuters: Hartford Financial Services Group, the troubled US insurer, named Liam McGee, a former Bank of America executive, as its new boss.
The Times: Royal Bank of Scotland, the state-backed bank, made a debt-for-equity swap with Four Seasons Healthcare, the UK's largest nursing home chain.
Around Asia
The Times: South Korea's $200 billion (£125 billion) state pension fund could buy the Canary Wharf headquarters of HSBC, the bank, if the building was for sale.
New York Times: Investments at GIC, a sovereign wealth fund of Singapore, fell more than 20 per cent in the year that ended in March.
The Times: Japan fell into long-term deflation and the trend could blight the world's second largest economy for at least another three years.
Look ahead
Wall Street Journal: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, the US fund that protects bank deposits, fell into the red and will stay there into 2012.
Bloomberg: Denmark's housing market will stop falling as its economy emerges from recession but property prices will stagnate through next year.
Wall Street Journal: BASF, the chemicals giant, will invest €2 billion (£1.8 billion, $2.9 billion) in Asia over the next four years.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 5,159.72 down 0.1% (Tuesday close)
Dow 9,742.20 down 0.5% (close)
S&P 500 1,060.61 down 0.2% (close)
Nasdaq 2,124.04 down 0.3% (close)
Nikkei 10,106.78 up 0.1% (latest)
Hang Seng 20,994.63 down 0.1% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6024/1.0958 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4623 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $65.82 up 33 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $67.00 up 29 cents (latest)
Gold $996.80 up $2.40(latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks fell on a surprise drop in consumer confidence. After the bell, sportswear maker Nike rose 4 per cent on better-than-expected results. Major drags included some of the stellar performers on Monday. Manufacturer 3M fell 1.4 per cent, network equipment maker Cisco Systems fell 1.3 per cent and computer maker Apple fell 0.4 per cent. Oil giant Chevron fell 1.1 per cent on lower oil prices. Walgreen, the largest US drugstore chain, rose 9.2 per cent on better-than-expected results. Rating agency Moody's rose 10.9 per cent and McGraw-Hill, parent of Standard and Poor's, rose 7.3 per cent on an analyst's upgrades.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose in morning trade, led by automakers and technology companies. Battery maker NGK Insulators rose 8.1 per cent in Tokyo on higher profit forecasts. Hynix Semiconductor rose 2.6 per cent in Seoul on reports a glut in memory-chips is easing. Samsung Electronics, the world's largest maker of computer memory, fell 1.4 per cent. Taiwan Semiconductor, the world's largest maker of customized chips, rose 1.9 per cent. Billabong, Australia's biggest surfwear maker, rose 3.6 per cent on better-than-expected sales. Harvey Norman, Australia's largest furniture and electrical retailer, rose 1.4 per cent on good Australian retail sales data. Hai-O Enterprise, a Malaysian seller of Chinese wines, herbs and medicines, rose 4.9 per cent on an analyst's upgrade. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.5 per cent to 117.33 in morning trade.
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
London
London Stock Exchange was in focus yesterday after the group hired new bankers to advise on mergers and acquisitions. Shares in the LSE rose almost 1 per cent after it said that Barclays Capital and Morgan Stanley would replace Bank of America Merrill Lynch, sparking hopes of big deals in the near future. Xavier Rolet, the new chief executive of the UK's largest stock market, said last week that he would look at acquisitions and partnerships to drive growth. The FTSE 100 eased 5.98 points to 5159.72 on a rollercoaster day that at one point saw the blue-chip index trading at its highest level for a year after upbeat US house price data, only to drop back after disappointing US consumer confidence figures. Legal & General was the biggest riser, up 4.8 per cent, on takeover speculation but Land Securities and Segro both fell more than 2 per cent on broker downgrades.
Peter Stiff
Peter.Stiff@the-times.co.uk
