WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING
FINANCIAL TIMES
LI KA-SHING PAYS £5.8BN FOR UK UTILITY
EDF of France is set to sell its UK electricity networks business to Cheung Kong Infrastructure of Hong Kong for £5.8bn, 45 per cent more than the price originally suggested for the deal, according to a person close to the negotiations.
The state-controlled French electricity group is expected to announce the sale with its half-year results on Friday morning. The deal at a stroke reaches the €5bn target the French utility set for disposals by the end of 2011.
US BANKS IN RUSH FOR CHEAP FINANCE
US banks are taking advantage of improving earnings and growing investor demand to raise billions of dollars in debt at historically low interest rates, a move that could boost the sector’s profits in coming years.
The burst of fundraising in the US is in stark contrast to Europe where banks have struggled to issue debt as the Eurozone crisis and worries about the financial industry have undermined market confidence.
EUROPEAN BUSINESS RECOVERY
A number of Europe’s leading companies reported stronger-than-expected earnings on Thursday, underlining the strength of the corporate recovery across the continent.
Heavyweight names such as Siemens, Royal Dutch Shell, Volkswagen and BASF all saw their second-quarter profits beat analysts’ forecasts considerably. “It’s another good set of results,” said Adrian Cattley, equity strategist at Citigroup speaking yesterday. “It is important not to confuse [gross domestic product] with stock markets. Just because European GDP is poor doesn’t mean that European corporate profitability should be poor.”
THE TIMES
GOLDMAN SACHS CLAMPS DOWN ON OFFENSIVE E-MAILS
Goldman Sachs has tightened its supervision of employees’ e-mails in an effort to ensure that embarrassing messages never again escape the walls of the investment bank. At a recent meeting in London, staff were told that Goldman had changed the search parameters on the system used to monitor incoming and outgoing e-mails.
UK TAKES DELIVERY OF LIGHTER, LEANER KINDLE
Amazon has launched a new version of its Kindle e-reader at a knock-down price of £109 and will sell the device directly to UK customers for the first time. The Kindle had previously been available on Amazon’s US website which meant that, including import taxes, early adopters had to stump up more than £200 to buy the e-reader.
The Daily Telegraph
HSBC GETS BULLISH ON RUSSIA
HSBC is plunging headlong into Russian equities as it makes the world’s biggest bet on the rising middle classes of Asia, Latin America, and the commodity bloc.
“Russia is our favourite,” said Nick Timberlake, HSBC’s emerging markets chief.
“We’re being offered a huge opportunity. It is not quite as good as it was after Russia’s debt default in 1998, but it’s excellent value.”
CHINA BLOCKS GOOGLE AGAIN
Google’s internet search services were last night blocked in mainland China just three weeks after a denouement between the technology giant and the secretive superpower appeared to have been reached. Google’s regular monitoring of its operations in the country revealed last night that its search services had been fully blocked in the region.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
YEN PULLS NINTENDO TO A LOSS
Nintendo yesterday reported its first quarterly loss in more than two years, as Japan’s strong currency and a lack of major new products further pinched the videogame maker.
Its weak fiscal-first-quarter results are the latest sign that the high yen is weighing on Japanese exporters by canceling out the benefits of their cost-cutting and recovering demand. Overseas markets accounted for 87 per cent of the Japanese game console maker’s group revenue for the three-month period ended in June.
TOYOTA RECALLS 480,000 VEHICLES FOR STEERING FIX
Japanese carmaker Toyota Motor is recalling about 480,000 vehicles around the world, mostly Avalon large sedans in the U.S., for steering-system flaws that could develop over time and lead to a loss of control.