What the other papers say this morning
FINANCIAL TIMES
TNK-BP partner look to sell stake
BP’s billionaire partners in TNK-BP say they want to sell or list their 50 per cent stake in the business, creating more uncertainty over the future of Russia’s third-largest oil producer.
Total arm warns over inaccuracies
Total Oil Trading, one of the largest groups of its kind, has warned of “inaccurate pricing” in the benchmarks for the energy market that underpin billions of dollars of trading a day in contracts such as Brent and West Texas Intermediate.
StanChart targets sub-Saharan push
Standard Chartered is preparing to ramp up its presence in sub-Saharan Africa in response to growing investor demand for the bank to expand outside its Asian heartlands. StanChart will today outline to investors its plans to at least double the size of its African business within the next five years. It will say it has $100m (£62.4m) to spend on 110 new branches in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and five other markets over the next three years and intends to hire 950 sales staff in its consumer businesss.
THE TIMES
Investors scramble for Direct Line
Individual investors have staged a last-minute rush to buy shares in Direct Line in a fresh boost to the insurer’s hopes of a successful flotation.
City fines to help war heroes
Millions of pounds of fines handed out to City firms for abuses including the Libor-fixing scandal will be channelled into charities supporting the Armed Forces, the Chancellor announced in his speech yesterday.
The Daily Telegraph
Virgin warns of fresh chaos
Virgin Rail has told the Department for Transport that transferring the West Coast train franchise to a state-owned operator threatens further chaos as it would involve re-writing 150 contracts.
Call for piracy rules to apply to 4G
Software and entertainment firms have called on Ofcom to expand the scope of a forthcoming anti-piracy regime to cover mobile operators, over fears that 4G will facilitate growth in unlawful filesharing.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
J&J facing cancer drug shortage
Johnson & Johnson applied for US and European regulatory approval of a new manufacturing process that would provide a short-term fix to the supply shortage of the cancer drug Doxil.
KBC to sell units in overhaul
Belgium’s KBC Group is going back to basics. The banking and insurance group said yesterday it will overhaul its business model. Several firms will be sold as it works to repay €4.67bn (£3.8bn) state aid.