 | April 30, 2010 |
Kill the Competition: Governor comments ... BP responsible ... Greek rescueTop storiesThe Times: Austerity measures will be so unpopular that the election winner will not get back into government for a generation, said the Governor of the Bank of England. http://tinyurl.com/2csl7dd The Daily Telegraph: President Barack Obama said BP, the British oil giant, was "ultimately responsible" for the cost and clean-up of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. http://tinyurl.com/2uvdmge The Times: The Greek Government agreed to a draft outline of a €24 billion (£21 billion, $32 billion) rescue package. http://tinyurl.com/29rrobs Comment Bill Emmott in The Times: The only way to stop the contagion is to cut the euro’s Greek leg off: in other words, to expel it from the single currency. http://tinyurl.com/369kemm Sean O’Grady in The Independent: Bank of England Governor Mervyn King's comments, though colourful, are hardly controversial. http://tinyurl.com/2abx8p8 Jeremy Warner in The Daily Telegraph: When the three party leaders finished talking about the economy we still didn’t know how they plan to cut the deficit. http://tinyurl.com/2auuyvo Upside The Times: UK house price growth has broken the double-digit barrier for the first time in almost three years. http://tinyurl.com/27rqvap The Daily Telegraph: BSkyB and Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, agreed a deal allowing rivals to show the broadcaster’s prized sports coverage at lower prices. http://tinyurl.com/35myws5 The Times: Soaring US sales of a drug used for treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder lifted the results of Shire Pharmaceuticals, its maker. http://tinyurl.com/2a2j76z Downside The Times: Uralchem, a Russian company, shelved plans for a $640 million (£418 million) listing on the London Stock Exchange. http://tinyurl.com/23qpnls Wall Street Journal: US prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into whether Goldman Sachs or the bank’s staff committed securities fraud. http://tinyurl.com/2aesucx The Independent: Britain's leading banks refused to detail their exposures to the debts of the troubled economies of Greece, Portugal and Spain. http://tinyurl.com/24avbnf Mergers and shakers The Times: HSBC faces an investor revolt over plans to pay Mike Geoghegan, the bank’s chief executive, £800,000 ($1.2 million) in cash and benefits for moving to Hong Kong. http://tinyurl.com/2df92bc Financial Times: Essar Energy, the oil and gas producer, dropped the asking price for its £1.6 billion ($2.5 billion) flotation. http://tinyurl.com/2cn77cy The Times: Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, failed to dent his rivals in a bruising final leaders’ debate focused on the economy. http://tinyurl.com/38xyrg9 Around Asia Wall Street Journal: Japan's consumer prices continued to fall in March, as factory activity rose at a slower-than-expected pace. http://tinyurl.com/2aav8v4 The Times: Japan is preparing to send an unprecedented number of political and commercial delegations to sell the nation to the world. http://tinyurl.com/2aa9cps Wall Street Journal: Samsung Electronics, the Korean electronics maker, reported its biggest quarterly profit ever, led by a surge in its chip business. http://tinyurl.com/25gocdo Look ahead Wall Street Journal: Continental Airlines and UAL's United Airlines are expected to announce on Monday that they are merging to form the world's largest airline. http://tinyurl.com/26rp49n The Times: The UK’s first new high-speed railway line will receive a government subsidy for the next four years because expected property developments remain unbuilt. http://tinyurl.com/2b6afrp Wall Street Journal: Google, the internet giant, plans to introduce its Android-based television software to developers at an event in May. http://tinyurl.com/26a59wx MARKETS FTSE 100 5,617.84 up 0.6% (Thursday close) Dow 11,167.32 up 1.1% (close) S&P 500 1,206.78 up 1.3% (close) Nasdaq 2,511.92 up 1.6% (close) Nikkei 11,073.55 up 1.4% (latest) Hang Seng 20,934.07 up 0.8% (latest) Currencies Sterling $1.5325/1.1586 euros (latest) Euro $1.3228 (latest) Commodities Brent crude $86.91 up 1 cent (latest) West Texas crude $85.32 up 15 cents (latest) Gold $1173.10 up $4.30 (latest) New York Reuters: US stocks chalked up their best day in nearly two months as investors welcomed a string of robust earnings reports and Greece appeared close to a bailout deal. Cellphone maker Motorola rose 3.5 per cent after results beat forecasts. Credit card firm Visa fell 0.8 per cent even after reporting higher-than-expected profits. Bank of America rose 2.9 per cent on optimism of a Greek bailout. Boosting the Nasdaq, smartphone maker Palm rose 26.1 per cent after Hewlett-Packard agreed to buy it. HP fell 0.8 per cent. Health Insurer Aetna rose 2.4 per cent on better-than-expected quarterly profit. Among energy shares, Exxon fell 0.8 per cent and ConocoPhillips rose 0.9 per cent. Profits at both companies were boosted from higher oil prices. The sunken oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico rocked the energy sector. Oilfield services company Cameron International fell 13 per cent and rival Halliburton fell 5.3 per cent. Transocean, the rig’s owner, fell 7.5 per cent and the New York-traded stock of BP, who are linked to the rig, fell 8.3 per cent. http://tinyurl.com/252nzsz Asia Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose in morning trade as improving company earnings boosted speculation the global economy will sustain its recovery. Samsung Electronics, Asia’s biggest maker of semiconductors, flat screens and mobile phones, rose 1.9 per cent in Seoul after profit jumped. Cigarette maker Japan Tobacco rose 5 per cent in Tokyo on good results. Macquarie Group, Australia’s largest investment bank, rose 4.3 per cent as second-half profit more than doubled. Santos, the Australian oil and gas explorer, rose 2.7 per cent on higher oil prices. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 1 per cent to 125.70 in morning trade. http://tinyurl.com/2f6w7ld Michael Beh: michaelwbeh@gmail.com London Many may wonder what the Takeover Panel does for most of its time. Yesterday, however, it was moved to issue its fourth then fifth "put up-or-shut up" ruling of the year. Its need to intervene in five corporate stand-offs this year demonstrates an increasing instance of the "shadow takeover" where unwanted bids from predator companies fall short of a hostile approach and instead hide behind "indicative approaches". Put up or shut up rulings - or a Pusu as they are also known in the City - demand such predators either make a formal bid by a certain deadline or walk away. In the three earlier cases this year - VT's abortive bid for Mouchel, Sports Direct's failure to land Blacks Leisure and Babcock's ultimately successful takeover of VT - the bidding process was stymied by the unwillingness of the target to engage with a suitor who was also a rival. For their part, those suitors were unwilling to proceed without a good look at the books. Forth Ports' decision to call in the Panel to put a June 1 deadline on its stalker - a consortium of shareholders speaking for more than 27 per cent of its shares - follows its rejection of three advances since late January, the latest this week at £14.00 a share. The official line from Forth, 5p higher at £13.47, whose port interests include Grangemouth and Leith in Scotland and Tilbury in the south, is that the offer is not generous enough. However, it is notable that the bidding consortium includes 3.5 per cent shareholder John Whittaker, who also happens to own Peel Ports, an arch-rival as the operator of Clydeport, Mersey Docks and the Medway Ports in the south. Forth shareholders who want to ask the board why it is standing so firm can do so today at its annual meeting in Edinburgh. Meanwhile, the Panel also slapped a Pusa on Oil India and Indian Oil Corporation, which now have until May 11 to formally bid or walk away from Gulfsands Petroleum, the Middle East-focused oil and gas explorer, whose shares added 5p to 323p on AIM. Overall, it was a much steadier day for stock markets after the Federal Reserve gave an upbeat assessment of the health of the world’s biggest economy and the latest wall of company results on both sides of the Atlantic were generally impressive. The FTSE 100 rallied 31.23 points to 5,617.84, as concerns about the debt crisis facing some European countries were set aside, for the time being at least. However, trading was light as many investors opted simply to remain on the sidelines on a day otherwise dominated by a rash of company results. Banks crept higher despite a warning from Standard & Poor’s, the ratings agency, that lenders face losses of as much as Eu92 billion (£80 billion) on commercial real estate loans in the UK, Ireland and Spain since 2009. Barclays added 9.25p to 361.25p ahead of what were expected to be muscular quarterly results today. Surprisingly strong results from Standard Life, 8.5p higher at 202p, carried other insurers higher. Legal & General, which steps up to the plate next week, rose 2.2p to 86.25p. Gary Parkinson Gary.Parkinson@thetimes.co.uk |
