KILL THE COMPETITION
Welcome to today's round-up of business news from The Times: what we're saying, what they're saying, from Michael Beh
Thursday, August 27, 0730 GMT
Top stories
The Times: Large parts of the City are too big and need to be cut down by imposing new taxes, according to the Financial Services Authority chairman.
The Daily Telegraph: Germany could directly intervene in the credit insurance and lending markets as soon as September to head off a looming credit crunch.
The Times: Network Rail, the rail infrastructure company, proposed a £34 billion ($55 billion) high-speed rail line from London to Scotland.
Comment
Ian King in The Times: Taxpayers are showing a modest profit from the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds but a profit is not a profit until you take it.
Damian Reece in The Daily Telegraph: The clue to changing public services lies in the stockmarket's Cinderellas: the support services sector companies.
David Prosser in The Independent: The retail industry is getting increasingly twitchy about the end of cut-price VAT on New Year's Eve.
Upside
The Times: Lloyds, the troubled bank, is planning a new form of capital for shareholders in an attempt to cut its use of the Government's scheme for toxic assets.
The Independent: Profits at Serco, the business services company, rose by a third in the first half of the year as it won a record number of deals.
The Times: Increased competition to buy the limited number of homes on the market has halved selling times in London over the past year.
Downside
The Times: Fujitsu, the Japanese information technology company, plans to cut 1,200 jobs in Britain, or 10 per cent of its UK workforce.
The New York Times: US regulators imposed tough new restrictions on private equity firms seeking to buy failed institutions.
The Times: The number of jobless households has jumped to a record of nearly half a million - the highest level since 1997.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Shareholders of National Express, the transport group, will choose between a £350 million ($568 million) rights issue and a takeover proposal.
The Independent: Guy Hands, the private equity tycoon, bought EverPower Wind Holdings, the US green energy group, for $350 million (£216 million).
The Daily Telegraph: Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of advertising giant WPP, admitted he should have made cost savings sooner as profit fell 47 per cent.
Around Asia
The Times: Stuart Chambers, one of only three foreigners promoted to the top of a big Japanese company, quit as chief executive of Nippon Sheet Glass.
Wall Street Journal: Apple is closer selling iPhones in China, one of the last major phone markets the technology company has yet to tap.
Bloomberg: Wuhan Iron & Steel, China's third-biggest steelmaker, plans to raise as much as 12 billion yuan ($1.8 billion, £1.1 billion) in a rights offer.
Look ahead
The Times: GM Europe, the owner of Vauxhall and Opel, sought insolvency advice in case it does have firm buyer within days.
The New York Times: A half-million option mortgages with low initial payments that can later rise sharply will be reset in the US in the next four years.
Reuters: Nokia, the world's top mobile phone maker, will launch a mobile financial service targeting consumers mainly in emerging markets next year.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 4,890.58 down 0.5% (Wednesday close)
Dow 9,543.52 steady(close)
S&P 500 1,028.12 steady (close)
Nasdaq 2,024.43 steady (close)
Nikkei 10,418.72 down 2.1% (latest)
Hang Seng 20,223.06 down 1.1% (latest)
Currencies
Sterling $1.6222/1.139 euros (latest)
Euro $1.4242 (latest)
Commodities
Brent crude $71.36 down 29 cents (latest)
West Texas crude $71.24 down 19 cents (latest)
Gold $946.40 up 60 cents (latest)
New York
Reuters: Investors stayed cautious on Wednesday after a rally, leaving stocks little changed. Among home builders D.R. Horton rose 5.7 per cent and Beazer Homes rose 5 per cent on good housing data. Home Depot, the largest home-improvement retailer, rose 0.9 per cent. Heavy construction firms fell after China said it would cut steel and cement overcapacity. Jacobs Engineering fell 2.8 per cent and US Steel fell 2.4 per cent. Technology company Apple fell 1.2 per cent on the Nasdaq. Phonemaker Nokia rose 4 per cent on reports of its new smartphone. Concurrent Computer fell 17.6 per cent on reports it expects lower spending trends to continue. Trading volume was light on the New York Stock Exchange.
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks fell in morning trade after China said it may curb overcapacity in the steel and cement industries. BHP Billiton, the world's biggest miner, fell 1.2 per cent and rival Rio Tinto fell 2.7 per cent. Mitsubishi, a Japanese trading company that gets more than a third of its revenue from commodities, fell 2.8 per cent. Esprit, the biggest publicly traded clothier in Hong Kong, fell 12 per cent on disappointing results. China Vanke, the nation's biggest publicly traded property developer, fell 1.3 per cent, and chemical maker Tokuyama fell 9.3 per cent on share-sale plans. Nippon Sheet Glass fell 7.8 per cent after its chief executive officer resigned. James Hardie, the biggest seller of home siding in the US, rose 2.2 per cent on good Us housing data. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.9 per cent to 112.55 in morning trade.
Michael Beh
michaelwbeh@gmail.com
