LONDON (Thomson Financial) - MARKETS
FTSE 100 6,466.8, down 19.6
FTSE 250 11,037.4, down 2.1
DJIA 13,895.63, down 17.31
Nasdaq Comp 2,701.50, down 8.09
S&P 500 1,526.75, down 4.63
Gold 743.50 usd (731.95 usd)
Oil - Brent Nov 79.17 usd (79.92 usd)
WEEKEND PRESS
* Treasury officials give the green light to two American hedge funds, JC Flowers and Cerebus, to enter takeover talks with Northern Rock's board this week; a third potential bidder, Lloyds TSB, was approached by the Treasury to consider a bid last week, but is not expected to meet Northern Rock's board unless the government reconsiders its reluctance to extend to new owners the sovereign guarantee keeping the bank afloat - Sunday Telegraph
* Northern Rock's accountant PricewaterhouseCoopers facing accusations of a damaging conflict of interest after it emerges that it earned bigger fees for helping the crisis-hit lender to sell on its loans, and borrow funds in the wholesale markets, than for auditing the business - Observer
* Northern Rock bondholders to meet this week in a bid to ensure the stricken mortgage bank is not sold off cheaply - Sunday Times
* Lloyds TSB tempted into having a second look at stricken lender Northern Rock after abandoning an earlier bid pitched at 200-300 pence a share; talks are now believed to have moved on to a deal that would almost certainly see the shareholders wiped out and bondholders nursing a loss - Saturday Telegraph
* Shareholders in Northern Rock urged to sell; brokers say shares could fall further; bid could come in at under 200 pence - Saturday FT
* The penal rate of interest that the Bank of England is charging Northern Rock for emergency funding is likely to plunge the mortgage bank into losses this year, according to RAB Capital - Saturday Independent
* Northern Rock takes 100 mln stg in penalty fees; bank had its single most profitable day as savers were forced to pay redemption charges to close accounts - Independent on Sunday
* Northern Rock sale 'doomed to failure'; large investors doubt any deal can succeed - Sunday Express
* Northern Rock investors may suffer as Ministers side with depositers - Saturday Mail
* Standard Life will offer as much as 800 pence a share to make sure it wins the race to land closed life or 'zombie' fund group Resolution; the Edinburgh-based insurer is drawing up plans for a friendly merger that values Resolution at around 750 pence - Sunday Express
* Resolution tells rivals to put up of shut up - Saturday FT
* Overstretched homeowners will be disappointed this week, as the Bank of England fails to cut borrowing costs to cushion the blow of the credit crunch, according to the Observer-New Star rate predictor - Observer
* At least six of HSBC's biggest institutional shareholders prepared to make a public declaration of support for Knight Vinke, the activist investor calling on the bank to overhaul its management and strategy in a bid to boost returns - Observer
* Lloyd's of London rapped for Burma link - Observer
* British Airways at risk of landing a 1 bln stg industry-wide bill for alleged price fixing in the international air cargo market, according to lawyers leading the class action against the airline - nearly three times the amount it has provided to cover any liabilities relating to two price-fixing cases - Sunday Express
* BP launches a search for a new chairman in a move that will draw a line under the turmoil that has engulfed the British oil giant for two years - Sunday Times
* BP poised to start production on a massive new rig in the Gulf of Mexico that will eventually churn out 200,000 barrels of oil a day - Sunday Express
* Alistair Darling refusing to be rushed into changing the tax treatment of private equity, according to Whitehall officials - Sunday Times
* Tesco growth weakest since 2000; after a decade of uninterrupted success, the supermarket has been hit by the wet summer - Sunday Telegraph
* Summer sales take slight dip at Tesco; like-for-like sales growth is expected to have fallen to 2.5 pct in the second quarter from 4.7 pct in the first - Sunday Express
* Tesco to sell cothes over the internet for the first time - Observer
* Secret plans to slash the Navy; fleet could be halved in 20 years - Sunday Telegraph
* British families now pay twice as much income tax as when Labour came to power - Sunday Telegraph
* ITV set to replace its controversial late-night premium-rate phone-in competitions with a live interactive bingo TV show - Sunday Express
* Barclays pulls the planned sale of its loan arm First Plus at the eleventh hour after the business failed to attract sufficiently high bids - Mail on Sunday
* Heavy losses at Ocado, the online retailer, raising questions over whether the company's long-expected flotation will ever occur - Sunday Telegraph
* Ocado, the internet grocery business, makes a loss for the sixth successive yearand its auditor now questions whether it can continue as a going concern - Mail on Sunday
* Hedge funds gambling on a fall in Britain's housing market with aggressive short selling of shares in housebuilders, developers and landlords; big bets have been placed on shares in Persimmon taking a dive; speculators also predicting that Grainger will see its share price drop - Sunday Telegraph
* Sir Philip Hampton, chairman of J Sainsbury, understood to be planning his first meeting with Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim, prime minister of Qatar, the gas-rich nation that is bidding for the supermarket chain - Sunday Times
* Bosses face axe at Debenhams; top private equity team is told to boost sales or risk being forced out - Mail on Sunday
* Mark Worthington enjoyed the high life when shares in the air-conditioning business founded by his father were floating upwards on a warm breeze of bullish news; but this week some of his largest shareholders are expected to start proceedings to force an extraordinary general meeting to oust him and his fellow directors, including chairman Alastair Stoddart, from the family firm, Worthington Nicholls - Mail on Sunday
* Board of Tate & Lyle will meet shareholders this week in an attempt to explain the reasons behind the 28 pct slump in the company's share price on Friday following a shock profits warning - Sunday Telegraph
* Rupert Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting this week expected to come under renewed pressure over the acquisition of a 17.9 pct stake in ITV, when the Competition Commission reveals its early opinions on the deal - Sunday Telegraph
* Vincent Tchenguiz, the entrepreneur, working on plans for a possible break-up of Erinaceous, the ailing property services group that breached some of its banking covenants last week - Sunday Telegraph
* Upmarket jeweller Theo Fennell close to entering mainland China with agreements to supply retailers in Beijing and Shanghai - Mail on Sunday
* Biofuels firms demanding the British government and the European Union take action to stop American rivals exploiting subsidies to flood the European markets with cut-price fuel - Sunday Times
* Quintain, the property company, expected to announce tomorrow that it has extended its land holdings with an 85 mln stg deal to buy Wembley retail park from Capital & Regional - Sunday Times
* Phil Riley, the former chief executive of Chrysalis Radio, fronting a private equity bid for Emap's 400 mln stg radio stations - Sunday Telegraph
* Apax expected to lead a pack of interested parties lodging first-round bids tomorrow for Emap's highly-regarded business-to-business division - Sunday Express
* Emap, the media conglomerate that has put itself up for sale, believed to be weighing up a plan to sell its pension fund to a third party in order to make a sale more attractive to bidders - Observer
* Second homes face price fall; correction threat to properties in Europe; credit crisis and oversupply to blame - Saturday FT
* ING Direct, a subsidiary of the Dutch financial group, to take over the customers and insured deposits of NetBank, an online lender with 2.5 bln usd (1.2 bln stg) in assets that was shut down yesterday by the US government following losses on subprime mortgages and other loans - Saturday FT
* S&P predicts loans shock; subprime sector faces payment blow; squeeze could hit 80,000 borrowers - Saturday FT
* Cost of UK's gambling habit: 10 bln stg; losses next year up 50 pct since 1999; roulette machines fuel betting boom - Saturday Guardian
* Spanish government understood to be resisting a possible takeover bid for Iberia by Air France-KLM - Sunday Telegraph
* Rolls-Royce's siting of a test centre in Germany is a 'slap in the face' for the group's UK workers, a union says - FT
* Sweden tells the entire board of Carnegie, the Nordic region's largest investment bank, to quit due to a 47.8 mln stg scandal - Saturday FT
* Peter Simon, the outspoken founder and chairman of Monsoon, launches a 755 mln stg bid to take the company private as the retailer reveals a slide in sales after struggling to find fashion appeal since the decline of 'boho chic' - Saturday FT
* 'Natives restless' with Tate & Lyle management; board changes may be afoot after a 48 pct share price slide this year - Saturday FT (p.14)
* Medical devices maker Smith & Nephew fined 28.9 mln usd (14.3 mln stg) by the US government and will undergo five years of ethics monitoring - Saturday FT
* SMG's chief executive says the personal contacts off Richard Huntingford, the new executive chairman of Virgin Radio, will smooth the path towards selling it as part of the group's move to reduce debt - Saturday FT
* Sibir Energy, the Russia-focused oil and gas company and AIM's largest stock, planning to move to the official list after more than doubling profits - Saturday FT
* Shareholders in Hungarian oil and gas group Mol starting to express support for the 16 bln eur (11.1 bln stg) bid approach from OMV of Austria - Saturday FT
* JJB Sports, which issued a profits warning nearly three weeks ago, planning to scrap its 165 store-in-store deals with Nike and Adidas and start selling more own-brand sportswear labels in an effort to stem falling profits and sales - Saturday FT
* Mike Ashley, founder of Sports Direct, under pressure from one of his biggest suppliers, Adidas, to tidy up his stores to prevent the brand being dragged downmarket - Sunday Telegraph
* Blacks Leisure has held talks with Adrian Wright, former head of menswear chain Moss Bros, as a possible replacement for ousted chief executive Russell Hardy - Mail on Sunday
* Activist fund-management group North Atlantic Value poised to launch a takeover bid for Bionostics, valuing the medical diagnostics firm at about 15 mln stg; North Atlantic planning to bid 30 pence a share - Sunday Times
* A seven-year foray into the US by estate agents Foxtons ends in failure as the American housing slowdown gathers pace - Saturday FT
* US activist investor Guy Wyser-Pratte takes a 1 pct stake in travel and shipping group Tui - Saturday FT
* Veteran financier Jim Mellon teams up with mining entrepreneur Stephen Dattels in a 77 mln stg deal to inject a Chinese coal firm into investment firm Regent Pacific - Sunday Times
* Consortium slashes Tote bid to 320 mln stg - Saturday Telegraph
* Northern Racing and Arena Leisure rejoin race for the Tote - Sunday Express
* The Japanese noodle restaurant chain Wagamama preparing a 200 mln stg-plus flotation - Sunday Times
* Cruise company All Leisure Group launches on AIM tomorrow, in the process making a fortune for chairman Roger Allard - Mail on Sunday
* Vets practice owner CVS Group set to make its 120 mln stg stock market debut next month in a deal that will raise 70 mln stg - Sunday Express
* Airline Transaero set to become the latest Russian firm to stage an initial public offering, with plans to float in Moscow this November; it is thought Transaero will try to raise about 500 mln usd to fund expansion plans - Sunday Express
SATURDAY PRESS COMMENT
FT
THE LEX COLUMN comments on Tate & Lyle (with a 5.5 pct yield twice covered by earnings, the shares are unlikely to drift much further; but it is clear that the group will still be subject to the vagaries of the weather, oil and crop prices and politics; this makes the share price particularly vulnerable to those sugar highs and lows), Bain Capital's buy-out of 3Com (having paid a full price, Bain has a real operational challenge to turn 3Com round globally) - Weekend Share Watch: FDM (uncertainty in the financial sector, where FDM gains 30 pct of its turnover, is a concern, but on a p/e of 9.78 times 2008 estimated earnings, it is trading at a discount to its staffing peers and wider IT services market), William Sinclair (the hidden asset is the factory site in the centre of Lincoln, as it might be sold for residential development if alternative premises can be found), S&U (look good value on a prospective 2008 p/e of 9.5, but more comfort in this sector might be gained in larger rivals) - LONDON: Lonmin (switching from Aquarius Platinum; vague talk of a possible bid and a rise in the platinum price), Benfield (reports that it has held takeover talks with the private equity arm of Goldman Sachs; Deccan Value Advisors lifts stake to 9.24 pct); SMALL CAPS: Aero Inventory (talk of a major outsourcing deal with British Airways), Woolworths (traders believe Baugur may be selling down its 10 pct stake)
Telegraph
THE MARKET: Mitchells & Butlers (vague rumours that billionaire currency trader Joseph Lewis might be looking to buy a larger stake in the pub operator at a price of around 680 pence a share) - QUESTOR COLUMN: Man Group (buy), Peter Hambro Mining (buy), Inspicio (at 160 pence this week, the shares trade on 15 times next year's earnings, which makes them an attractive long-term prospect) - Nina Montagu-Smith puts together a portfolio of 'ethically questionable' stocks such as tobacco to see if it proves the theory that such shares do well in a downturn: Booze and fags (British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco, Molins, Diageo); Gambling (Ladbrokes, PartyGaming, NETeller); Weapons and defence (Armour Group, BAE Systems)
Independent
NO PAIN, NO GAIN: Derek Pain says long-suffering investors could score with Servoca - MARKET REPORT: Royal & Sun Alliance (ABN Amro says the business would look attractive to several international operators)
Times
Shepherd Neame shakes off hangover from bitter family disputes; conflict proved to be the wake-up call that the Faversham-based business needed to breathe new life into Britain's oldest brewer (BUSINESS p.59) - Large caps: British Land (fears it may have to pull the sale of a 75 pct stake in Meadowhall shopping centre, which it was hoping would fetch 1.2 bln stg), Liberty International (finance director exercises 40,000 options and sells all but 7,000 of them); Small caps: RPC Group (Atorka, the Icelandic investment group, reveals a 3.18 pct stake), Fayrewood (Christopher Mills, the aggressive activist investor, increases his stake to above 13 pct from 11.5 pct) - Tempus: Tate & Lyle (this is only a buy for the brave), BSS Group (hold), SMG Group (avoid) - Rumour of the day: Pendragon (could be about to issue a profits warning) - Deal of the day: Hansard Global (three directors pick up 42,658 share between them at prices between 228 pence and 255) - Tiddler to watch: Allied Gold ('buy' with 43 pence target price - Mirabaud Securities) - PERSONAL INVESTOR: BP (sell)
Express
TAKING STOCK: David Shand looks at staff agencies in his Square Mile review (a snowballing of negative sentiment in the wider market could keep interest in the sector subdued in the short term); Smiths Group (in frame as Bowman takes the hot seat); ONES TO WATCH: Glisten (trading on 12 times next year's earnings, shares offer value at 367-1/2 pence), Rurelec (with new capacity coming on stream, the value of its assets is set to rise) - MARKET REPORT: Benfield (speculation of a 700 mln stg bid approach from Goldman Sachs at about 320 pence per share)
Guardian
AT Communications (finance director buys 1 mln stg worth of shares, while chief executive pays 45 pence each for 330,000 shares to take his stake to 15.7 pct)
MARKET REPORT: Lonmin (revived talk of a mega bid from Xstrata) - INVESTMENT EXTRA: GlaxoSmithKline (buy)
SUNDAY PRESS COMMENT
Sunday Telegraph
THE REAL BUSINESS: Immunodiagnostic Systems (investors should view this as a great niche business; much of the upside has already gone but that does not diminish the opportunity as it enters its next stage) - SHARE TIPS: BP (buy), Diageo (buy), Aberdeen Asset Management (buy), John David Group (hold), SCi Entertainment (buy on current weakness)
Sunday Times
INSIDE THE CITY: Prudential (Lehman reckons the shares are worth 1,060 pence, almost 41 pct more than the current 751-1/2; that seems a bit high, but Prudential still looks undervalued), DSG International (current rating looks too low) - Five shares tipped to soar by Christmas: Imagination Technologies, Autonomy, Verisign, Aquarius Platinum, Peter Hambro Mining
Mail on Sunday
MIDAS: Walker Greenbank (this stock deserves to go higher); MIDAS UPDATE: BG Group (investors already in the stock should hold on to half their holdings for a while longer) - Pottery firm Portmeirion is proving a big hit with Macy's, the world's largest department store chain (FINANCIAL MAIL p.32)
Sunday Express
BROKERS' NOTES: Tate & Lyle (Panmure Gordon hold from buy), Robert Wiseman Dairies (Citigroup hold), Compass Group (Panmure Gordon sell), Manganese Bronze (Collins Stewart buy), Moss Bros (Landsbanki buy)
Observer
Can we rely on Macquarie? It is known as the millionaires' factory, but serious questions are now being raised about the Australian bank, which owns utilities and transport groups across Britain. Nick Mathiason investigates claims that the organisation's growth is unsustainable (BUSINESS p.6) - MARKET FORCES: easyJet (will surely struggle to meet analysts' expectations in 2008 as there will be little scope to raise prices), John David Group (the good news is already factored in; Seymour Pierce is only telling clients to buy the shares up to 602 pence), WPP (Morgan Stanley targets 770 pence, against the current price of 656; plenty to play for), SCi Entertainment (in talks with bidders; directors said to be determined to hold out for 500 pence; but it's a pity directors didn't sell 18 months ago when the share price was stronger and potential buyers, who were circling at the time, might have been prepared to pay significantly more) tf.TFN-Europe_newsdesk@thomson.com jlw COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News.