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
Thursday, December 3, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: Habitat, the home furnishing chain, is set to have a new owner as soon as next week.
Wall Street Journal: Bank of America, the troubled investment bank, plans to repay $45 billion (£27 billion) in TARP funds, the US government aid programme.
The Times: The board of the Royal Bank of Scotland could resign if the Treasury vetoed a £1.5 billion ($2.5 billion) bonus pool at the state-backed bank.
Comment
David Wighton in The Times: By insisting on a veto on bankers bonuses at the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Government has ensured a public bust-up.
Ambrose Evans Pritchard at The Daily Telegraph: Hot off the press, here are "The Top Ten Trades" for 2010 from the team at the Goldman Sachs.
David Leonhardt in the New York Times: Dubai was a stress test, and the financial system passed.
Upside
The Times: Google restricted the number of subscription-only articles freely accessible through its website to appease newspaper publishers.
The Daily Telegraph: Barclays, the investment bank, will award its 22,000 investment bankers pay rises of up to 150 per cent.
New York Times: The Federal Reserve reported modest improvements in the US economy.
Downside
The Times: Another 5,000 lawyers could find themselves out of work next year as City law firms undergo a new round of job cuts.
Financial Times: UK banks have an aggregate exposure to Dubai World, the crisis-hit emirate holding company, of about $5 billion (£3 billion).
The Times: 25 construction companies contested penalties imposed by the competition regulator for illegally inflating bids for building tenders.
Mergers and shakers
New York Times: Rusal, the struggling aluminum producer, is close to an agreement with about 70 banks to restructure its loans.
Wall Street Journal: A consortium led by two former Ford Motor executives submitted a revised bid this week for the car maker's Volvo unit.
New York Times: Six former executives of Siemens agreed to pay the engineering giant €18 million (£16 million, $27 million) in damages resulting from a bribery scandal.
Around Asia
Bloomberg: South Korea's corporate earnings may fall short of analyst estimates in 2010, said Samsung Securities, the nation's top-ranked brokerage.
Wall Street Journal: Cheil Worldwide, South Korea's largest advertising company, agreed to buy Barbarian Group, the Boston-based digital ad firm.
Bloomberg: India plans to raise as much as 150 billion rupees (£2 billion, $3.2 billion) by selling shares in three state-run electricity companies.
Look ahead
The Times: Euroframe, a group of ten leading European economic think-tanks, forecasts that the UK economy will grow by 1.7 per cent in 2011.
Financial Times: The withdrawal of cheap emergency loans will cost UK banks an extra £6 billion ($10 billion) over the next four years.
Reuters: Mobile phone handset market volumes will grow about 10 per cent in 2010, predicts Nokia, the mobile phone giant.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 5,327.39 up 0.3% (Wednesday close)
Dow 10,452.68 down 0.2% (close)
S&P 500 1,109.24 steady (close)
Nasdaq 2,185.03 up 0.4% (close)
Nikkei 9,828.41 up 2.3% (latest)
Hang Seng 22,382.33 up 0.4% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6682/1.1053 euros (latest)
Euro $1.5092 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $78.19 up 31 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $76.77 up 17 cents (latest)
Gold $1223.80 up $10.80 (latest)
New York
Reuters: The Nasdaq rose as strong online holiday sales boosted shares of retailers, the Dow edged lower as investors sold energy shares and the S&P finished flat. Online retailer Amazon rose 2.7 per cent after good online sales reports. After the bell, Bank of America rose 3.2 per cent after reports the bank will repay taxpayer bailout funds by raising new capital. Among energy companies, Occidental Petroleum fell 1.2 per cent and Exxon Mobil fell 0.3 per cent on data indicating a surprising rise in oil stockpiles. Investment bank JPMorgan Chase fell 0.7 per cent on speculation revenue would fall under proposed legislation.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose in morning trade as a weaker yen boosted Japanese makers of cars and electronics. Sony, an electronics maker, rose 4.9 per cent. Pioneer, a maker of car-navigation systems and audio equipment, rose 4.7 per cent. Honda, the Japanese car maker, rose 4 per cent and rival Nissan rose 5.6 per cent. James Hardie Industries, the top seller of home siding in the US, rose 2.7 per cent in Sydney on good US economic data. In Seoul, LG Electronics, Asia's second-largest handset maker and which gets the bulk of its revenue from North America, rose 4.3 per cent. Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Japan's third-largest shipping line, rose 5.3 per cent and rival KK Nippon Yusen rose 1.6 per cent after freight rates rose. Mitsubishi Motors rose 18 per cent on speculation Paris-based Peugeot Citroen may buy a stake in the carmaker. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 1 per cent to 121.05 in morning trade.
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
London
Salamander Energy was in focus yesterday amid suggestions that the FTSE 250 group was on the verge of striking a deal with Origin Energy.
The Asia-focused oil and gas explorer, up 1.7 per cent, is believed to have signed a $90 million agreement that will see the Australian group take a stake in its assets in Thailand and Vietnam in return for enough funding to see the company through to production.
The FTSE 100 advanced 15.22 points to 5,327.39 as investors continued to take the view that implications of Dubai's debt problems may not be as bad as intially feared.
Lonmin was the biggest gainer, up 3 per cent, amid higher metal prices.
Banks fell, with Royal Bank of Scotland down 2 per cent, after a Credit Suisse said the sector was still not attractive and that capital pressures were not necessarily over.
Peter Stiff
Peter.Stiff@the-times.co.uk
