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 Wall Street Journal: The board of AIG, the struggling insurance
titan, forced out Martin Sullivan,
its chief executive, and replaced him with Robert Willumstad, its chairman.
The Independent: Saudi Arabia is to raise
oil production to record levels within weeks in an attempt to avert an
escalation of social and political unrest around the world.
The Times: HBOS is under pressure
from shareholders to provide more details about its exposure to
struggling British housebuilders after one company called in restructuring
experts.
Comment
Anatole Kaletsky in The Times: If there were going to be a US
recession in response to the credit crisis, it would have started by
now. The US economy is out of the woods.
Lex in Financial Times: The practice of oil majors attaching their name
to the end product looks increasingly superfluous, if not counterproductive.
Roger Bootle in The Daily Telegraph: A sharp
retreat in the prices of crude oil and other commodities would make for
ultra-low inflation and even perhaps deflation.
On the up
Bloomberg: Corn advanced to a record
as floods damaged crops in the US, the world's largest producer and
exporter, threatening global food supplies.
Financial Times: Tim Mason, the chief executive of Tesco's US
operation, said the Fresh & Easy chain was
thriving and that it was preparing to expand beyond the West Coast.
The Daily Telegraph: Central London has bucked
the trend on the high street with like-for-like sales 8.2 per cent
higher in May than in the same month last year.
Downside
The Times: Britons are heading for a miserable
cocktail of soaring unemployment and surging inflation as the credit
crunch shows no sign of waning, the CBI says.
The Wall Street Journal: The legal
problems of managers and major shareholders of Airbus's parent deepened
as lawsuits filed in the US allege insider trading in shares of EADS.
Reuters: Marcus Agius, the chairman of Barclays, said the sub-prime
crisis had yet to run its course,
amid concerns that big lenders are to unveil more credit-related losses.
Mergers and shakers
The Daily Telegraph: Cirque du Soleil, the acrobatics circus, has
received takeover approaches,
including one believed to have come from the Kingdom of Dubai.
The Times: Shareholders in Yell, the owner of Yellow Pages, have called
for decisive action from the group's
management amid concerns over its falling share price and high levels of
debt.
Financial Times: Barclays is seeking
to raise as much as £4 billion from outside investors as it seeks to
shore up its balance sheet without having to launch a rights issue.
Around Asia
South China Morning Post: James Packer, the Australian gaming and media
magnate, is in advanced talks to build a $1.5 billion (£770 million) casino
resort in the Philippines.
The Nikkei: Japan is to allow sovereign wealth funds to hold stakes of
20 per cent or more in domestic banks, the Financial Services Minister said.
Bloomberg: China's industrial
production growth rose 16 per cent on rising exports, signalling that
the world's fourth-biggest economy is weathering a global slowdown.
Look ahead
BBC: Rajat Nag, the managing director of the Asian Development Bank,
said that inflation in 2008 would
exceed the 5.1 per cent annual figure predicted in April.
The Times: BDO Stoy Hayward, the accountants, said that the number of businesses
going bust is set to rise next year to the highest level since the
dot-com crash.
The Daily Telegraph: Rio Tinto is to unveil a £190 million investment
in driverless trains as it plans to
boost production at its Australian iron ore operations 50 per cent.
Unfinished business - last week wrapped up
Last Monday
The number of houses changing hands
has collapsed to the lowest level in 30 years, the influential RICS housing
market survey showed.
Lloyds TSB raised the stakes in the
battle for current account customers, increasing its credit interest rate
from 4 to 6 per cent.
Tuesday
Alexey Miller, the head of the Kremlin-owned gas giant Gazprom, said that
crude oil would hit $250 per barrel
"in the foreseeable future".
The Governor of the Bank of England was on a collision
course with the high street banks, calling on them to put billions of
pounds into a consumer compensation scheme.
Wednesday
InBev launched an unsolicited bid to
acquire Anheuser-Busch for $46.4 billion (£23.7 billion), offering a 14 per
cent premium.
Citigroup is to close a hedge fund
co-founded by Vikram Pandit, its chief executive, 11 months after Citigroup
bought the fund's management company, it emerged.
Thursday
Yahoo! reached a search-ad agreement
with Google, uniting the systems of two industry giants. Yahoo! said that
acquisition talks with Microsoft had ended.
BP openly criticised the Russian
Government for the first time over its failure to intervene in the
escalating dispute with its TNK-BP joint venture partners.
Friday
Moss Bros, the menswear retailer, has
reported a sharp increase in the sales of ties, reflecting a reaction to the
looming threat of redundancy.
Ruth Dangerfield, the head of the UK homeware chain Habitat,
has unexpectedly resigned from the retailer after just over a year in the
job.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 5,802.80 up 0.2% (Friday close)
Dow 12,307.35 up 1.4% (close)
S&P 500 1,360.03 up 1.5% (close)
Nasdaq 2,454.50 up 2.1% (close)
Nikkei 14,179.62 up 1.5% (latest)
Hang Seng 22,942.32 up 1.6% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.9517/1.2666 euros (latest)
Euro $1.5409 (latest)
Commodities
West Texas crude $134.05 down 81 cents (latest)
Gold $874.50 up $1.40 (latest)
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose,
led by carmakers and technology companies, on speculation that demand for
the region's exports will be sustained as the yen weakened against the
dollar. Toyota, which makes about half its profit in North America,
advanced to a one-week high in Tokyo. Samsung Electronics, Asia's
biggest maker of chips, mobile phones, and flat panels, and LG Electronics
advanced in Seoul. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was up 0.5 per cent in
intraday trading.
Paul Larter
paul.larter@thetimes.co.uk
AGENDA
INTERIMS
Albany Capital
FINALS
Dawnay, Day Sirius
Geong International
Kewill Systems
Majestic Wine
AGMs
BATM Advanced Communications
Dexion Absolute
Dexion Equity Alternative
Plant Offshore Group
Toye & Co
X5 Retail Group
EGMs
Bradford & Bingley
ECONOMICS
Bank of England quarterly bulletin (0001 BST)
CBI economic forecasts (0001 BST)
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