WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING
FINANCIAL TIMES
EU NATIONS WIN A YEAR’S REPRIEVE ON STATE AID
European governments will be allowed to provide soft loans and other concessionary support to their banking and industrial sectors for one more year because of the lingering effects of financial crisis, according Europe’s top competition regulator. But in an interview Joaquín Almunia, European Union competition commissioner, said he would reinstate the much tougher “normal” state aid regime from the beginning of 2012.
FLASH CRASH REPORT WILL NOT STOP HFT DEBATE
The high-frequency trading firms that have come to dominate daily trading in US equity markets may feel entitled to a little slack. After suffering a good deal of political heat over May’s “flash crash” on Wall Street, it turns out that a large order by a traditional investor was the trigger for the wild market swings.
BOFA SELLS OFF FOXTONS LOANS PACKAGE
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has sold loans it made to Foxtons estate agents at the peak of the London property bubble to Haymarket Financial, a corporate lender launched last year. The deal severs all lending links between BofA and Foxtons, as the US bank is also selling its share of the estate agents’ mezzanine loans, a more junior form of financing.
VIMPELCOM SET TO JOIN TELECOMS BIG LEAGUE
Vimpelcom has agreed to merge with most of the telecoms assets of Naguib Sawiris, the Egyptian entrepreneur, to form the world’s fifth largest mobile phone group by customers. The $6.6bn deal will transform Vimpelcom.
THE TIMES
MORE THAN HALF OF £7BN CITY BONUSES WILL GO TO TAXMAN
The City will pay bonuses totalling nearly £7bn this year but, for the first time, the taxman will be taking a greater share of the bonuses than bankers, brokers and traders. The latest forecasts from the Centre for Economic and Business Research show that recent Treasury revisions indicate that banks and City firms will be paying a total of £6.99bn this year in bonuses.
KRAFT CHIEF’S CHARM OFFENSIVE IN CADBURY HEARTLAND
The chief executive of Kraft will finally meet Cadbury staff this week — nine months after the American food group’s controversial £11.5bn takeover of the Dairy Milk maker. Irene Rosenfeld will hold a “town hall” meeting for Cadbury employees at its Bournville site in Birmingham.
The Daily Telegraph
NIGHTCLUBS PLAN TRADE ASSOCIATION TO KEEP DANCING
Nightclub impresarios are banding together to create the first trade association for top West End clubs. The fiercely competitive owners and managers behind the velvet ropes have agreed to share knowledge and cooperate in a bid to boost business. Club Union, likely to be called the Association of Club Owners when it is formally established, aims to be an authority on the industry that can help its members.
Boom time about to take off with Airbus in Bangalore
One factory was carrying on regardless. At Dynamatics, a Bangalore-based supplier to Airbus, workers continued making a crucial wing part for the manufacturing giant’s A320 aircraft. This is a business which lives up to the outsourcing.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
ECB RAMPS UP BOND-BUYING
The European Central Bank said its purchases of government bonds in the past week rose to their highest level in three months, against a background of increasing market fears for the financial health of Ireland and Portugal. The news is further evidence of the euro zone’s uneven progress out of the crisis.
EMERGING-MARKET BONDS ATTRACT FOREIGNERS
Foreign investors are rushing into emerging-market bonds from Indonesia to Mexico, bearing foreign-exchange risks that used to be held by locals. The latest evidence came when the Asian Development Bank reported that foreigners are taking an ever bigger chunk of locally issued debt, alleviating the need for businesses and government to borrow in dollars or other hard currencies.