WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING
FINANCIAL TIMES
XEROX CHIEF SETS OUT THE BIG PICTURE
Ursula Burns, chief executive of Xerox, has been working overtime to justify an acquisition designed to transform one of the most famous names in corporate America. The $6.4bn purchase last September of ACS, an IT services company, was guaranteed to get Wall Street’s attention. Coming only two months after Ms Burns took over as chief last summer, it signalled a daring attempt to kick-start growth.
GOOGLE REVAMPS RESULTS LAY-OUT
Google may be known as a company that has pushed online boundaries, but the search group participated in a bit of catch-up. The technology group introduced changes to its results page that brought it in line with navigation elements already employed by its main rivals.
CME TO LAUNCH CHEESE FUTURES
Big food producers reliant on cheddar, mozzarella and gouda will be better able to manage the costs of future supplies after the CME Group, the world’s largest futures exchange, said that it would launch cheese futures next month. The new contract reflects an apparent return of cheese-love in the US as well as a growing appetite for cheese in emerging markets.
AUSTRALIA SEEKS TRADE PACT WITH INDIA
Australia and India are to push ahead with negotiations on a free trade agreement that is expected to help Canberra balance its increasing reliance on trade with east Asia. Simon Crean, Australia’s minister for trade, said during a visit to Mumbai that the agreement would be “comprehensive”, meaning both sides would agree to open agriculture markets. as well as goods and services and investment.
THE TIMES
BA “PRICE-FIX” TRIAL IS HALTED FOR THIRD TIME
The trial of four British Airways executives accused of criminal price-fixing was postponed for the third time yesterday. Mr Justice Owen told a jury at Southwark Crown Court, in London, that they would not be needed until Monday because of a “problem”. He did not elaborate.
BRITISH BANKERS TRAPPED IN BAHRAIN FOR TEN MONTHS
Three British bankers have been unable to leave Bahrain for ten months after being placed under investigation in relation to the collapse of a Saudi bank. The three were senior executives at Awal Bank, which collapsed last July. They remain on its payroll at the request of the bank’s administrators. They were forced to surrender their passports on July 30 last year.
The Daily Telegraph
MACMILLAN ADMITS TO BRIBERY OVER WORLD BANK SUDAN AID DEAL
Macmillan, the British publisher behind Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker prizewinner, Wolf Hall, has admitted it made “corrupt payments” in an attempt to win a World Bank aid contract in Africa. A Macmillan Education representative made the undisclosed bribery payments to a local official in an unsuccessful attempt to secure the multi-million pound contract for an education project in southern Sudan.
ELECTION SLOWS DOWN HOUSING MARKET
The property market has experienced a slowdown ahead of the general election, one of Britain’s leading property agents has said. In a brief trading update on Wednesday, Savills said there has been “some evidence of slowing in activity in UK markets”.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
NOVARTIS SEEKS PAYMENT FOR CANCELLED ORDERS
About half of the 15 governments that ordered H1N1 vaccine from Novartis AG ended up cancelling part of their orders, and some are still negotiating with the company over payment, Andrin Oswald, head of Novartis’s vaccine business, said in an interview.
FACEBOOK GLITCH EXPOSED PRIVATE CHATS
Facebook scrambled to fix a bug that permitted some users’ chat messages and pending friend requests to be made visible to their friends. The snafu comes amid a flurry of complaints by critics who contend the social network is cavalier about privacy. The bug was buried in a feature that allows users to see whether certain parts of their profile are hidden or accessible to a particular user.