Welcome to today's round-up of business news from The Times: what we're
saying, what they're saying
Top stories
The Times: Citigroup, the American banking group, will
axe another 52,000 jobs in the next few months.
New York Times: Jerry Yang will
step down as chief executive of Yahoo, the internet search company he
co-founded, after deals with Microsoft and Google fell through.
The Times: Rents fell for the
first time in five years as home-movers flooded the rental market with
properties that they could not sell.
Comment
David Wighton in The Times: Regardless of whether its rivals follow
USB’s radical bonus plan, pressure
is growing for executives to get less.
Richard Fletcher in the Daily Telegraph: The rush
for buy-backs has not only saddled companies with debt – they did not
even deliver the returns expected.
Matthew Lynn on Bloomberg: The hedge funds’ excuses for their miserable
results have been lame , evasive and
unimaginative.
Upside
The Times: UBS staff will forfeit
previously earned bonuses if they underperform, under a radical new pay
system devised by the stricken Swiss bank.
The Times: The Government will
offer loans of up to £250,000 directly to small businesses as banks
continue to withhold credit from them.
Reuters: The US Congress took the
first step toward bailing out the nation's crippled auto industry with
a proposed $25 billion (£16.7 billion) loan program.
Downside
The Times: SVG Capital, the listed fund, hopes to reduce
payments to Permira, its parent, amid concerns that the private equity
industry faces a funding crisis.
Daily Telegraph: Sales at John Lewis, the retailer, fell
14 per cent last week, raising further fears about consumer confidence
in the run up to Christmas.
The Times: The former bosses of MG Rover, the carmaker that collapsed
in 2005, have stalled the publication
of a government report into their conduct.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Zac Goldsmith, the multimillionaire Conservative Party
candidate, came close to buying The
Independent newspaper in the late summer.
New York Times: PepsiCo will dump
BBDO Worldwide as its creative advertising agency for Pepsi-Cola, its
flagship soft drink; it has used the firm since 1960.
Bloomberg: Bank of America will pay
about $7 billion (£4.7 billion) to almost double its stake in China
Construction Bank, China’s second largest bank.
Around Asia
New York Times: Spansion, a struggling US maker of flash memory chips, sued
Samsung of South Korea, the world’s largest producer of the chips, for
patent infringement.
Financial Times: China Life, the world’s largest life assurer, is
eyeing overseas acquisitions to take advantage of the global financial
crisis.
Financial Times: Two of China’s three largest airlines have
applied for emergency government funds and are expected to get £290
million ($440 million) each.
Look ahead
The Times: Pirc, the corporate governance campaign group, will
oppose Barclays' £7.3 billion ($10.9 billion) capital-raising plan at
the bank’s November 24 meeting.
Financial Times: Russia intends to
cut its oil export duties by a third next month to help companies that
have been making losses on crude exports.
Bloomberg: Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, predicts markets
will be under stress for “a number
of months”.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 4,132.16 down 2.4% (Monday close)
Dow 8,273.58 down 2.6% (close)
S&P 500 850.75 down 2.6% (close)
Nasdaq 1,482.05 down 2.3% (close)
Nikkei 8,440.41 down 1% (latest)
Hang Seng 13,293.63 down 1.7% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.4994/1.1874 euros (latest)
Euro $1.2627 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $52.52 up 21 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $55.27 up 32 cents (latest)
Gold $738.20 down $3.80 (latest)
New York
Bloomberg: US stocks tumbled
as a contraction in New York manufacturing and Citigroup's plan to shed jobs
spurred concern the recession will deepen. Alcoa, the largest US
aluminum producer, fell 11 per cent on an analyst’s downgrade. Citigroup,
the US banking group, fell 6.6 per cent. Among other financial stocks, Bank
of America fell 8.5 per cent and Goldman Sachs fell 6.4 per cent.
Insurers were hard hit with Hartford Financial Services Group falling
27 per cent, MetLife falling 21 per cent and Prudential Financial falling
17 per cent. Caterpillar, the biggest maker of bulldozers, fell 3.4
per cent and Deere & Co, the largest tractor manufacturer, fell
3.1 per cent. Car giant General Motors rose 5.7 per cent on hopes it
will get government aid.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks fell
in early trade to a three-week low on concern the slowing global economy is
stifling the outlook for profits. Sony, the maker of the PlayStation
3 games console, fell 2.4 per cent and Canon, the world's largest
seller of digital cameras, fell 1.7 per cent. Rio Tinto, the world’s
third-largest miner, fell 1.9 per cent on lower commodity prices and Newcrest
Mining, Australia's largest gold producer, fell 4.2 per cent. Macquarie
Group, Australia's biggest securities firm, rose 19 per cent after a 43
per cent drop in profits beat analysts' estimates. Utilities rose on lower
oil prices. Kansai Electric Power, Japan’s second-largest power
producer, rose 1.9 per cent and Korea Electric Power, South Korea's
biggest producer, rose 1.9 per cent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 1.1
per cent to 81.87 in early trade.
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
London
The three banks set to receive a £37 billion Government bailout were pushed to
new lows on growing fears that the cash would not be enough to rescue them
from a lengthy recession.
HBOS fell 14 per cent, its predator Lloyds TSB lost another 10 per
cent ahead of a shareholder vote on whether to buy it. Royal Bank of
Scotland fell 12 per cent way below the 65.5p price the Government will
have to pay.
The FTSE 100 lost 100.81 to 4,132.16 with the mining sector falling almost as
much as banks. Kazakhmys, the copper miner, stood out with a 12 per
cent fall after Cazenove warned that it would struggle to meet $432 million
debt repayment next year and $576 million the year after unless current
talks with the Kazakh government to sell half its power business succeeded.
Wolseley lost 11 per cent ahead of interim figures today which are
expected to include a grim outlook.
Standard Chartered fell 7 per cent as Dresdner Kleinwort stoked growing
fears it would need a £2 - £3 billion rights issue.
Robert Lindsay
robert.lindsay@thetimes.co.uk
AGENDA
INTERIMS
Big Yellow
British Energy
Burberry
Carphone Warehouse
Charles Stanley Group
James Cropper
HSBC Infrastructure Company
ICAP
Oxford Instruments
Renold
Walker Crips
FINALS
easyJet
Enterprise Inns
GW Pharmaceuticals
Lonmin
OTHER RESULTS
Barclays (Q3)
Persimmon (Q3)
Wolseley (Q1)
TRADING STATEMENTS
FBD Holdings
Premier Foods
Rexam
Unite Group
Vitec
AGMs
Antisoma
Barratt Developments
Manchester & London Investment Trust
Ricardo
Smiths
Wellstream Holdings
Wolseley
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