Welcome to today's round-up of business news from The Times: what we're saying, what they're saying, from Michael Beh
Thursday, October 1, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: London's FTSE 100 index rose 20.8 per cent last quarter, delivering its best quarterly performance in 25 years.
http://tinyurl.com/ybz2zc2
The Daily Telegraph: Five major UK banks agreed to a string of reforms governing bonus payments.
http://tinyurl.com/y8wp4py
The Times: Adam Applegarth, the former chief executive of Northern Rock, the nationalised bank, joined Apollo Management, a US private equity firm.
http://tinyurl.com/yddmq9c
Comment
David Wighton in The Times: The Bank of England has started a campaign to win round public opinion on its quantitative easing policy.
http://tinyurl.com/ya757ao
Jeremy Warner in The Daily Telegraph: Does anyone really believe the alarmist numbers the International Monetary Fund reports about the bad debt problem?
http://tinyurl.com/yc8toyl
Jonathan Weil on Bloomberg: Just when we think the banking crisis might be under control, along comes a reality check that tells us we're still flying blind.
http://tinyurl.com/yeh76a9
Upside
The Times: More than 50 of the UK's biggest energy projects may be fast-tracked through the planning system under the new Infrastructure Planning Commission.
http://tinyurl.com/yed6z57
New York Times: The global advertising market showed signs of bottoming out in the second quarter of the year.
http://tinyurl.com/y9kl88t
The Times: A recession-driven uplift in crime increased profits for IndigoVision, the British maker of internet-based video security systems.
http://tinyurl.com/ybke2xg
Downside
The Daily Telegraph: BAE Systems may face criminal prosecution over corruption allegations unless the arms maker agrees to a plea bargain with the Serious Fraud Office.
http://tinyurl.com/yds9bzg
Wall Street Journal: General Motors, the US car giant, will close its Saturn division after Roger Penske, the former race-car driver, abandoned his bid.
http://tinyurl.com/y8gfhdq
The Daily Telegraph: The Office of Fair Trading fined six recruitment companies a total of £40 million ($64 million) for price fixing.
http://tinyurl.com/yey2cdl
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Ken Lewis, the chief executive of Bank of America who masterminded the acquisition of Merrill Lynch, will step down by the end of this year.
http://tinyurl.com/yeezf2w
Wall Street Journal: John Watson, vice chairman of Chevron, the US energy giant, will take over from chairman and chief executive David O'Reilly.
http://tinyurl.com/ya3xmbh
The Times: Kraft, the American food group, is close to finalising a deal with lenders on the funding of its bid for Cadbury, the UK confectioner.
http://tinyurl.com/y99pb36
Around Asia
The Times: The Chinese Government launched an attack on overcapacity in a series of stinging curbs on new factories, smelting plants and port-building projects.
http://tinyurl.com/y862ara
Wall Street Journal: The flow of initial public offerings of stock recovered faster in China in the third quarter than anywhere else in the world.
http://tinyurl.com/ybwlaab
New York Times: Bharti Airtel, the Indian telecoms group, and MTN Group, its South African rival, called off a $24 billion (£15 billion) deal.
http://tinyurl.com/ydp45pn
Look ahead
The Times: Britain is one of the countries most vulnerable to a credit shortage between now and the end of next year, predicts the International Monetary Fund.
http://tinyurl.com/ydpq9f7
The Daily Telegraph: British Airways, the UK carrier, could seal its £4.2 billion ($6.7 billion) merger with Spain's Iberia by the end of the year.
http://tinyurl.com/y9aglta
The Times: OnLive, an online video gaming company, secured substantial funding and will begin streaming games over the internet within a few months.
http://tinyurl.com/y9cprmx
MARKETS
FTSE 100 5,133.90 down 0.5% (Wednesday close)
Dow 9,712.28 down 0.3% (close)
S&P 500 1,057.08 down 0.3% (close)
Nasdaq 2,122.42 down 0.1% (close)
Nikkei 9,990.03 down 1.4% (latest)
Hang Seng 20,955.25 down 0.3% (Wednesday close, closed for a holiday)
Currencies
Sterling $1.597/1.0908 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4641 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $68.52 down 55 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $69.97 down 64 cents (latest)
Gold $1007.70 down $1.60(latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks fell after a surprising contraction in an index of Midwest business activity. After the bell, Bank of America rose 1.4 per cent on the retirement of chief executive Ken Lewis. In other extended-hours trading, Penske Automotive Group fell 8.9 per cent after it ended talks with General Motors. On the Nasdaq, computer networking firm Cisco rose 1 per cent and computer maker IBM rose 0.7 per cent. Investment bank JPMorgan fell 2.4 per cent. Aerospace firm Boeing fell 0.9 per cent and rival United Technologies fell 0.6 per cent. Aluminium producer Alcoa fell 1.4 per cent as investors took profits following this quarter's jump in commodity prices. Energy giant Exxon Mobil fell 0.7 per cent on concern about lower refining margins.
http://tinyurl.com/ydk2yrw
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks fell in early trade, led by companies reliant on exports. Honda, which gets 45 per cent of its sales in North America, fell 2.4 per cent and Nissan, which counts North America as its biggest market, fell 1 per cent in Tokyo. Canon, which makes digital cameras and office equipment, fell 2.5 per cent. Samsung Electronics, Asia's biggest maker of chips and flat screens, fell 1.8 per cent in Seoul. Advantest, the world's largest maker of memory-chip testers, fell 4.8 per cent on an analyst's downgrade. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.7 per cent to 117.19 in morning trade. Markets in Hong Kong and China are closed for holidays.
http://tinyurl.com/ycc6foq
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
London
Lloyds Banking Group was under pressure yesterday after Cazenove warned as much as £1.1 billion could be wiped off the bank's annual earnings if the European Commission forces it to reduce its market share in personal current accounts and SME banking. Shares in the bank fell 1 per cent after Cazenove cautioned that regulators in Brussels may ask Lloyds to cut one sixth of its 30 per cent market share in current accounts, about half what it gained from the acquisition of HBOS last year. Moreover, it has a 24 per cent market share in SME banking and the broker thinks it may be forced to cut half or all of the 6 per cent contribution from HBOS. The broker estimates that such demands on Lloyds would cost between £500 million and £1.1 billlion of annual earnings.
The FTSE 100 dropped 25.82 points to 5133.90 to end what has been a stellar quarter on a downbeat note. The blue chip index had been trading higher for much of the session before being dragged lower by Wall Street, where figures showing rising job cuts and weak business activity in the Midwest cast a shadow over better than expected GDP figures.
Man Group was the top riser, climbing 7.5 per cent, after the hedge funds business said outflows were slowing and that it had assets worth an estimated $43.8 billion at the end of September, which was at the top end of City forecasts. Man was also bouyed by reheated speculation that it could attract takeover interest from Barclays, up
Reed Elsevier fell 1.2 pe cent after Goldman Sachs placed 22 million shares in the media group overnight at a price of 465p to 470p on behalf of an institutional investor.
Peter Stiff
Peter.Stiff@the-times.co.uk
