Welcome to today's round-up of business news from The Times: what we're saying, what they're saying, what you should be thinking

Top stories

The Times: Business customers are deserting Royal Mail and most firms do not regard the postal group as an efficient partner, a British Chambers of Commerce survey found.

The Daily Telegraph: The Government has ruled out selling British Energy to a lone bidder, despite the auction drumming up interest only from France's EDF.

The Independent: British Airways has appointed Whitehead Mann, the recruitment consultants, to find a new chief operating officer and possible successor to Willie Walsh.

Comment

Gary Duncan in The Times: The deluge of ever more dismal economic indicators now leaves little doubt that the economy is facing its most testing two-year stretch since the early Nineties.

Lex in Financial Times: Aggregate European earnings are expected to grow 6 per cent this year and by 10 per cent in 2009. However, such a gentle deceleration and rebound seems over-optimistic.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph: As the Fed's loan survey makes clear, lenders have dropped the guillotine. The poison is spreading from banks to the real world.

Upside

The Daily Telegraph: HBSC and Barclays will this week give the banking industry some cheer with evidence that both have their sub-prime problems under control.

The Times: A technology leap by Speedo, the Nottingham-based swimsuit market leader, has forced Japan's leading global sportswear makers to innovate or perish.

Financial Times: Consumers of basic commodities face near-record costs to ship goods amid a combination of port delays, strong demand and ship shortages.

Downside

The Times: Hugh Osmond, the serial entrepreneur, is considering relocating Pearl Assurance, his financial services group, outside the UK for tax purposes.

Financial Times: Royal Dutch Shell and Spain's Repsol have pulled out of the $10 billion development of one of Iran's biggest gas projects in the face of diplomatic pressure.

Financial Times: The £10 billion of writedowns unveiled by Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS and Lloyds TSB will knock more than £2.5 billion off the three banks' combined tax bills.

Mergers and shakers

The Times: Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, confirmed that it was suing Accenture, the global consultancy group, over a billing system designed by the consultancy group.

The Wall Street Journal: Tribune is on the brink of a deal to sell its Long Island newspaper Newsday to Cablevision Systems for $650 million (£334 million).

The Daily Telegraph: Vodafone has ruled out an acquisition of MTN, the South African mobile group, opening the way for Bharti Airtel of India to take a majority stake.

Around Asia

BBC: China has launched a new commercial aircraftmaker that it hopes will one day compete with the likes of Boeing and Airbus, state media reported.

Bloomberg: China's inflation rose 8.5 per cent in April from a year earlier - close to the fastest pace in 11 years - underscoring the Government's challenge in taming prices.

The Australian: Westpac is in talks to buy St George to create Australia's second-largest bank. A bid would likely value the target at more than A$15 billion (£7.2 billion; $14.1 billion).

Look ahead

Bloomberg: Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, will this week map out how much room policy makers see for interest-rate cuts as they struggle with faster inflation and signs the economy may be heading for a recession.

Financial Times: Morgan Stanley will on Monday announce that it has raised a $4 billion (2.1 billion) private equity fund dedicated to infrastructure projects.

The Daily Telegraph: DSG, the owner of Dixons, Currys and PC World, is expected to cut its dividend and announce a wave of store closures and job cuts this week.

Unfinished business - last week wrapped up

Last Monday

BlackRock, the US asset manager, is to buy a portfolio of subprime mortgage debt from UBS for $15 billion (£7.6 billion), it was reported.

Microsoft was understood to be in preliminary talks with Time Warner about buying AOL, the media group's internet unit.

Tuesday

Martin Liechti, the head of North and South America for UBS's international wealth management business, was detained by US authorities investigating tax evasion.

Aberdeen Asset Management is considering abandoning the UK as its headquarters for tax purposes as frustration builds over Treasury tax changes, it was reported.

Wednesday

The US and Europe have a united desire to see the dollar strengthen against the euro, senior officials said.

Millions of current account customers face an increase of up to 20 per cent in monthly fees, it was reported.

Thursday

Charles Dunstone, the founder of Carphone Warehouse, unveiled a £1 billion investment from Best Buy, the US company.

Royal Mail is to call for price controls to be lifted after revealing that it lost £200 million on its regulated letters and parcels business last year, it was reported.

Friday

Vikram Pandit, the chief executive of Citigroup, said that he had no interest in breaking up the conglomerate but will dump $400 billion (£205 billion) in assets during the next few years.

Investors pummeled shares of AIG shares even as Martin Sullivan, the chief executive, tried to explain why the company was raising $12.5 billion (6.4 billion) in new capital.

MARKETS

FTSE 100 6,204.70 down 1.1% (Friday close)

Dow 12,745.88 down 0.9% (close)

S&P 500 1,388.28 down 0.7% (close)

Nasdaq 2,445.52 down 0.2% (close)

Nikkei 13,739.55 down 0.6% (latest)

Currencies

Sterling $1.948/1.2638 euros (latest)

Euro $1.5414 (latest)

Commodities

West Texas crude $125.57 down 39 cents (latest)

Gold $887.00 up $1.20 (latest)

Asia

Bloomberg: Asian stocks were set for their longest losing streak in more than two months, on concern that rising prices of raw materials will erode earnings. Mitsubishi Gas Chemical fell the most in three months after saying that this year's profit will be lower on higher costs. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was down 0.4 per cent in intraday trading. Toyota declined after the yen traded close to a three-week high against the dollar.

Paul Larter

paul.larter@thetimes.co.uk

AGENDA

INTERIMS

Diploma

RM

Southern Cross Healthcare

FINALS

Freeplay Energy

Gable Holdings

Metal-Tech

Robert Wiseman Dairies

Stobart Group

AGMs

Burst Media

Centrica

Colliers CRE

Lombard Medical Technologies

Mobile Streams

Zirax

EGMs

KazakhGold Group

Proventec

TRADING STATEMENTS

Centrica

Dignity

Hiscox

HSBC Holdings

Wolseley

ECONOMICS

UK March trade data (0930 BST)

UK April PPI (0930 BST)

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