WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING
FINANCIAL TIMES
AGARWAL’S PROJECT QUASHED
Anil Agarwal, the Indian billionaire who controls Vedanta, the UK-listed mining group, has suffered a setback to his philanthropic ambitions, hard on the heels of legal problems this year involving some of the group’s Indian operations. Mr Agarwal’s plans to build a $3.3bn (£2.1bn) university in a coastal area of impoverished Orissa, starting with a $1bn endowment from his personal fortune, have fallen foul of the law – and a powerful Hindu deity, Lord Jagannath.
GOOGLE AND HACHETTE IN DEAL
Google and Hachette Livre have struck a groundbreaking deal allowing the world’s second largest retail book publisher to control the scanning and electronic sale of its out-of-print French language titles. The agreement, covering about 50,000 works.
MINTS CASH IN ON SILVER COINS
Silver coins are selling at a record pace as investors – especially in the US – seek to limit their exposure to the dollar. The world’s top mints have seen their silver coin sales jump to record or near-record levels, and they and coin dealers are working overtime to meet the surge in demand from investors.
3I CHIEF WARNS DEALS ARE EXPENSIVE
Private equity groups will face “tough questions” from investors when many of them seek to raise fresh funds in the next year or two, according to Michael Queen, chief executive of 3i, the UK’s biggest listed private equity group by market capitalisation. Warning that an overhang of capital left from the last buy-out bubble was causing private equity groups to pay “extraordinarily high” prices for deals, Mr Queen said the excess of dry powder in the industry would take 12-18 months to clear.
THE TIMES
AMERICAN ACQUISITION REPRESENTS LEAP FOR IMAGINATION
Imagination Technologies has bought its American rival HelloSoft in its first acquisition for a decade.
The $47 million deal puts the company that provides graphics processors for the iPad among the select few British technology companies that have reversed the trend of selling out to larger US rivals.
HEDGE FUND DEMANDS €200M FROM WALLENBERG BANK
A Swedish investment bank is being sued for about €200 million by a hedge fund that claims the bank slashed the value of its portfolio.
Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, which is controlled by the Wallenberg family, faces action from Euroption, a British Virgin Islands-based hedge fund with offices in the City of London.
The Daily Telegraph
BRITISH BANKS HAVE £140 BILLION EXPOSURE TO IRELAND’S ECONOMIC CRISIS
George Osborne has pledged to help Ireland after new figures showed British banks have a £140 billion exposure to the beleaguered country. The chancellor attended crisis talks in Brussels to discuss the growing debt crisis in Ireland with the country under intense international pressure to accept an international bailout.
NEW LEAK EXPOSES MOD FURY AT DEFENCE CUTBACKS
David Cameron’s defence review has demoralised the Armed Forces, strained relations with allies and ignored significant military advice, a leaked Ministry of Defence document has disclosed. It was rushed and its handling “badly damaged the confidence and morale of our personnel,” the paper says.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
JULIUS BAER SEES PROGRESS IN RAISING CLIENTS’ RISK APPETITE
Swiss private bank Julius Baer Group AG, is succeeding in its efforts to raise the risk appetite of its wealthy private clients who sheltered their money in low-risk cash investments during the financial crisis, tempting them instead into slightly riskier products such as corporate bonds and foreign exchange trading, its head of investment solutions said in an interview.
VERIZON RETHINKS PRICING
Top executives at Verizon Communications Inc. are exploring ways to charge consumers based on the speed of their wireless data connection in addition to the amount of data they use. Chief executive Ivan Seidenberg said that such a pricing change would be made possible by the carrier’s migration to a fourth-generation, OR 4G.