Welcome to today's round-up of business news from The Times: what we're saying, what they're saying, from Michael Beh
Monday, November 2, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: Lufthansa, the German flag carrier, withdrew bmi from sale and will concentrate on trying to turn around the loss-making airline.
http://tinyurl.com/yae5wpd
The Daily Telegraph: British Airways plans spending cuts of £140 million ($230 million) that could cause the airline to be grounded by a cabin crew strike.
http://tinyurl.com/y8q7vfc
The Times: CIT group, America's leading specialist lender to small business, filed for Chapter 11 protection in the fifth biggest bankruptcy in US history.
http://tinyurl.com/y8dc59k
Comment
Gerard Lyons in The Times: The UK must anticipate the emerging competitive global economy to be in the best position for the future.
http://tinyurl.com/ydtegj8
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Daily Telegraph: No one knows exactly when a country tips into a debt compound trap, but Japan must be close.
http://tinyurl.com/yf3gzno
Sean O'Grady in The Independent: Europeans have far less in common than we might think and it has taken this crisis to show us.
http://tinyurl.com/ybez54f
Upside
The Times: The UK government will agree to strip down and sell various parts of Lloyds Banking Group and RBS, the state-backed banks.
http://tinyurl.com/yc62hn7
Wall Street Journal: Non-financial US companies are holding more cash and a greater percentage of assets in cash than at any time in the past 40 years.
http://tinyurl.com/yaqofz6
The Times: The UK taxman made his first appearance on YouTube, the social media site, targeting savers who have not declared their offshore accounts.
http://tinyurl.com/yhy8u65
Downside
The Times: Ofwat, the UK water regulator, is likely to order tough new price controls that could trigger a round of rights issues by Britain's water companies.
http://tinyurl.com/y87c9p6
The Daily Telegraph: Sharp increases in share prices improved the outlook for pension funds in every major developed nation except the UK.
http://tinyurl.com/yl5jpq3
The Times: The UK tax office is targeting business owners that made use of pre-pack administration measures, charging up to six months of VAT to start again.
http://tinyurl.com/ydzndam
Mergers and shakers
Wall Street Journal: Denbury Resources will buy Encore Acquisition in a deal that will combine two independent oil companies in North America.
http://tinyurl.com/yf6m2ac
The Independent: Barclays, the UK banking giant, and its rival HSBC are aggressively expanding in Russia's major cities.
http://tinyurl.com/y92qm44
Wall Street Journal: Goldman Sachs, the banking group, is in talks to buy millions of dollars of tax credits from Fannie Mae, the US-backed mortgage giant.
http://tinyurl.com/ye9vh9j
Around Asia
The Times: Lord Bilimoria, the founder of Cobra Beer, is trying to raise £4.5 million ($7.4 million) to expand the Indian arm of the brewer.
http://tinyurl.com/yb7qwym
Wall Street Journal: The debut of Apple's iPhone in China gave no sign of the sellout reception experienced in other countries.
http://tinyurl.com/y96vk8p
New York Times: Growth Enterprise Market or GEM, China's new Nasdaq-style stock exchange, opened to a wild buying spree.
http://tinyurl.com/ydrqn9y
Look ahead
The Times: The UK should cut spending and raise taxes by an extra £350 billion ($576 billion) over the next five years, says Roger Bootle, a leading economist.
http://tinyurl.com/yk6otkx
The Daily Telegraph: The European junk bond market is set to grow from €100 billion (£89 billion, $147 billion) to €150 billion by the end of 2012.
http://tinyurl.com/yg4c9dd
The Times: Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, will use the Pre-Budget Report in December to ensure that high earners do not evade the new 50 per cent tax rate.
http://tinyurl.com/ycxrolf
Unfinished business - last week wrapped up
Last Monday
Yell, the debt-laden Yellow Pages business, missed a deadline for a rescue agreement and its shares fell more than 10 per cent.
http://tinyurl.com/yhsjqoh
Standard Life, the insurer, sold its Standard Life Bank offshoot to Barclays, the banking giant, for £226 million ($369 million) in cash.
http://tinyurl.com/ylfgeq7
Tuesday
TPG, the US private equity house, sold its last shares in Debenhams, the UK retailer, taking its total profit to nearly £500 million ($820 million).
http://tinyurl.com/yz29ff8
Kenneth Feinberg, the US Treasury pay czar, cut total compensation at companies under his control but increased base pay.
http://tinyurl.com/yzpf3oe
Wednesday
National Express, the beleaguered transport group, walked away from a merger with rival Stagecoach over concerns that regulators could derail a deal.
http://tinyurl.com/yzmaq9e
Swinton Group, the insurance broker, was fined £770,000 ($1.3 million) by UK authorities for mis-selling payment protection insurance.
http://tinyurl.com/yzy9m98
Thursday
Profit at Exxon, the oil giant, fell 68 per cent in the third quarter, hurt by weakness at its production and development unit.
http://tinyurl.com/yfck8pj
Herbert Smith and Lovells, the City law firms, won coveted Treasury work advising on the stability of the financial system.
http://tinyurl.com/yz9d2oy
Friday
US authorities seized nine failed banks, the most in a single day since the financial crisis began.
http://tinyurl.com/ylpnf2d
A former top executive at ValueAct Capital, the US hedge fund, was one of seven people charged with insider-trading.
http://tinyurl.com/yhcgkld
MARKETS
FTSE 100 5,044.55 down 1.8% (Friday close)
Dow 9,712.73 down 2.5% (close)
S&P 500 1,036.19 down 2.8% (close)
Nasdaq 2,045.11 down 2.5% (close)
Nikkei 9,762.66 down 2.7% (latest)
Hang Seng 21,261.54 down 2.3% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6444/1.1151 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4747 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $75.49 up 29 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $77.12 up 12 cents (latest)
Gold $1044.30 up $3.90 (latest)
New York
Reuters: The Dow industrials suffered its worst fall since July and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell on concerns that the economic recovery won't be robust enough to sustain the seven-month stock rally. For the week, the Dow fell 2.6 per cent, the S&P 500 lost 4 per cent and the Nasdaq fell 5.1 per cent. Banking giant Citigroup fell 5.1 per cent on reports the bank was likely to be charged $10 billion on its deferred tax assets. On the Dow, JPMorgan fell 5.8 per cent and Exxon Mobil fell 3.1 per cent. On Nasdaq, iPhone maker Apple fell 4 per cent and search engine Google fell 2.7 per cent.
http://tinyurl.com/yfrwr4q
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks fell in early trade, led by finance and electronic companies as spending by US consumers fell. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the nation's largest bank by market capitalisation, fell 2.9 per cent. James Hardie Industries, the biggest seller of home siding in the US, fell 5.6 per cent in Sydney. Sony, the electronics giant, fell 4.9 per cent on the stronger yen even after narrowing a loss forecast. Mitsubishi, a Japanese trading company that gets 39 per cent of its sales from commodities, fell 3.6 per cent on lower commodity prices. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 1.2 per cent to 115.11 in early trade.
http://tinyurl.com/yz722jj
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
