Welcome to today's round-up of business news from The Times: what we're
saying, what they're saying
Top stories
The Times: The Royal Bank of Scotland will announce today that
borrowers who cannot keep up with their mortgage repayments will have a six-month
breathing space .
New York Times: After spending almost $1.4 trillion to stabilise the US
financial system, president-elect Barack Obama, economists and policy makers
are figuring out how much must be
invested to stop the recession.
The Times: The Engineering Employers' Federation fears another 90,000
jobs could be lost in manufacturing
next year as it makes a new plea for the Government to throw a lifeline to
embattled industrial groups.
Comment
Sam Laidlaw in The Times: To achieve an increased cut in emissions of
carbon dioxide and other gases, we need a "carbon
crunch " far greater in scale than most people imagine.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Daily Telegraph: Spreads on
geo-strategic risk are now widening as
dramatically as the spreads on financial risk at the onset of the
credit crunch.
John Waples in The Times: With BHP Billiton's proposed takeover of Rio
Tinto abandoned, both companies now will rewrite
their business plans to reflect the changed world.
Upside
The Times: Online traders should enjoy a merry Christmas as online
spending this year will reach £4.7 billion ($7.2 billion), up 10 per
cent on last year's £4.2 billion ($6.4 billion).
Reuters: General Motors' board is rushing
to complete a restructuring plan intended to cut costs and win support
for up to $12 billion in emergency funding from the US Government.
Financial Times: Aggressive price-cutting
by US retailers over the Thanksgiving holiday brought shoppers into stores
in droves, according to spending estimates for the weekend.
Downside
The Times: The London Stock Exchange has lost
a quarter of its near-monopoly in London business in equities to rival
exchanges with Chi-X building a 15 per cent share since it entered the
market last year.
Daily Telegraph: The Society of Pension Consultants, the trade body for
the pensions industry, called on the Government to stand
behind the Pension Protection Fund as it comes under mounting pressure.
Daily Telegraph: Fine art prices could
halve as rich investors show signs of reining in their spending, says
Hiscox, the largest specialist insurer of fine art in Europe.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: The Merger Action Group, made up of Scottish businessmen, is
challenging the Government's decision to allow HBOS to be taken over by
Lloyds TSB without referring the deal to the Competition Commission.
The Independent: Ardeshir Naghshineh, the property tycoon who owns
London's Centrepoint building, is one of several potential bidders lining
up to buy the 800-shop retailer Woolworths.
Daily Telegraph: Amlin, the FTSE 250 insurer, wants
to create a new insurance syndicate at Lloyd's of London funded
entirely by private investors to take advantage of a sharp rise in insurance
premiums.
Around Asia
The Times: Citigroup, once the world's biggest bank, is believed
to be selling NikkoCiti Trust and Banking Corporation, one of its
Japanese businesses, in its latest move to raise capital.
Financial Times: Japan's economy is unlikely
to respond to a planned fiscal stimulus and will have to endure higher
unemployment, according to Economy Minister Kaoru Yosano.
New York Times: China's President Hu Jintao warned that the global
financial crisis was threatening to
undermine the country's booming economy and that China could lose its
competitive edge as trade growth slows.
Look ahead
The Times: While Opec has deferred a decision on fresh oil production
curbs, a cut in crude output of up
to 1.5 million barrels a day is likely to be settled at the cartel's
December 17 meeting.
Daily Telegraph: The Bank of England was urged by business groups and
economists to cut interest rates to
their lowest in 57 years to stop the economy sliding deeper into
recession.
The Independent: Tesco, the supermarket group, is pegged
to unveil a slowdown in UK like-for-like sales growth when it publishes
a third-quarter update tomorrow.
Unfinished business - last week wrapped up
Last Monday
The Government's Pre-Budget Report
revealed a £1 trillion ($1.5 trillion) debt gamble to defeat the recession.
Huang Guangyu, one of China's richest men and head of its biggest electronics
retailer, was reportedly detained by
police investigating a stock scandal.
Tuesday
BHP Billiton's hostile pursuit of Rio
Tinto, its mining rival, ended, with advisers to both companies pocketing a
total £400 million ($615 million).
The US Federal Reserve offered a surprise
$800 billion (£517 billion) to credit markets, bringing the bailout
total to $1.7 trillion (£1.1 trillion).
Wednesday
Woolworths was put into
administration; many of the retailer's 800 outlets will close for good after
Christmas, putting up to 30,000 jobs at risk.
The European Commission proposed a €200 billion (£168 billion, $258 billion) rescue
package and China cut interest rates by 108 basis points.
Thursday
UBS , the Swiss banking giant, ordered
executive bonuses worth £38 million ($58 million) to be forfeited and the
partial end of client secrecy.
Jaguar Land Rover sacked 850 workers
at its West Midlands car plant just hours before industry chiefs pleaded for
government help.
Friday
The British Government bought a 58 per cent stake in Royal
Bank of Scotland for £15 billion ($23 billion) after investors shunned
a rescue plan.
Euro zone inflation fell to 2.1 per
cent, increasing expectations that the European Central Bank will make its
biggest ever rates cut in the coming week.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 4,288.01 up 1.5% (Friday close)
Dow 8,829.04 up 1.2% (close)
S&P 500 896.24 up 1% (close)
Nasdaq 1,535.57 up 0.2% (close)
Nikkei 8,345.83 down 2% (latest)
Hang Seng 14,180.34 up 2.1% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.5376/1.2105 euros (latest)
Euro $1.2702 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $53 down 92 cents(latest)
West Texas crude $54.43 down 2 cents (latest)
Gold $819 up 95 cents (latest)
New York
Reuters: US stocks rose on
Friday on light volume in an abbreviated session, capping the best week for
the S&P 500 since at least 1980 as investors hoped government and central
bank moves would boost the economy. Economic bellwethers such as General
Electric and financial stocks rallied and helped overshadow weakness in
retailers' shares, which slumped on concerns the weak economy may hurt sales
during the holiday shopping season. The Dow's top advancers included Caterpillar,
up 4.2 per cent, and Coca-Cola, up 3.3 per cent. In the financial
sector, Citigroup jumped 17.6 per cent while American Express
gained 4.5 per cent, Bank of America climbed 5.3 per cent and JPMorgan
Chase 3.4 per cent. Yahoo! gained 8.8 per cent and gave the
Nasdaq one of its biggest lifts after billionaire activist investor Carl
Icahn disclosed he has raised his stake in the Internet company.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks fell
in morning trade, snapping a four-day winning streak as Australian profit
growth slowed and Japan's Morimoto became the country's
second-largest bankruptcy this year. Morimoto filed for protection from
creditors with 162 billion yen ($1.7 billion) of debt, nine months after its
initial public offering. BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining
company, slumped 4 per cent in Sydney as a report showed Australia's
corporate profit growth slowed in the third quarter and as commodity prices
declined. Mitsubishi Estate, Japan's second-biggest property
developer, lost 3.9 per cent, leading declines among the country's
real-estate shares after Morimoto filed for protection from creditors. The
MSCI Asia Pacific Index declined 1.4 per cent to 81.51 in morning trade.
Myles McIvor
mjclub@bigpond.com.au
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