Tuesday newspaper round-up: Marks & Spencer, HBOS, Apple,

06/01/2009 

Marks & Spencer will announce massive job losses tomorrow after dire Christmas trading - nearly a thousand posts will go in stores and several hundred more from head office and support functions. Debenhams and Next are also expected today to unveil their worst Christmas performances in recent history, writes the Times.

The ban on the short-selling of shares that was introduced to protect Britain's banks is to be lifted. The Financial Services Authority said that the ban, which was imposed in September and covered the shares of 32 financial companies, would cease after January 16. However, the City regulator said that it planned to continue to force investors to disclose their short positions until June 30 at least, the Times reports.

Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, said he has a 'hormone imbalance' that has caused his dramatic weight loss but insisted he is well enough to remain Apple's chief executive. News that the man behind the maker of the iPod and iPhone will stay in his role sent the group's shares up more than 6%. There has been concern in recent months that Jobs, who was treated for pancreatic cancer five years ago, had suffered a relapse, reports the Telegraph.

HBOS could be "hollowed out" by its takeover partner Lloyds TSB, leaving the 79,000 people in the HBOS pension fund at risk of not having their pensions paid in full, the scheme's leading independent trustee warned yesterday. Roger Boyes, who is spearheading a campaign to challenge the £33 billion deal in court next week, told The Times that he and his fellow trustees had no option but to try to block the deal.

Britain risks a repeat of the current financial crisis unless it establishes a body to tackle systemic risk that is independent enough to stand up to powerful vested interests, a prominent former regulator has warned. Sir Andrew Large, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, says that the UK needs an independent body that would provide early warnings of systemic problems and have the tools to discourage excessive borrowing, the FT reports.

David Cameron on Monday vowed to cut the size of the state by £5bn and to use the money to fund tax breaks for savers, drawing sharp economic dividing lines with Labour ahead of the next election. The Conservative leader's plan to encourage thrift during a recession was called "economic madness" by Labour, which claimed the unspecified cuts in public spending would hit front-line services, writes the FT.

High-grade corporate bonds are set to outperform other asset classes in 2009, fund managers and market strategists surveyed by the Financial Times have forecast. More than half those surveyed said high-quality corporate credit was trading at cheap levels and that this was the asset class most likely to see a rally in 2009.

Bernard Madoff, accused of Wall Street's biggest ever fraud, mailed around $1m (£680,000) of jewellery, watches and other family heirlooms to friends and relatives in the days after his arrest, prosecutors say, in an attempt to prevent the authorities from getting their hands on them, reports the Independent.

More than a third of deposit accounts aimed at ordinary savers pay returns of 1% or less, after banks and building societies cut savings rates over the new year. With the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee expected to cut official interest rates by at least 0.5% on Thursday, further dramatic reductions are expected, reports the Times.

MKS - Marks & Spencer Group

MKS

Latest Prices
Name	Price	%
Marks & Spencer Group	238.75	+3.80
Debenhams	34.25	+20.18
HBOS	68.90	+4.71
Next	1227.00	+12.47