WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING
FINANCIAL TIMES
CREDIT SUISSE TO ISSUE COCOS EARLY
Credit Suisse’s chief executive said he hoped to begin issuing billions of dollars in contingent-capital bonds in the next year to help shore up the bank’s financial strength well ahead of new Swiss regulations. Brady Dougan also defended Credit Suisse’s decision to award one-off payments to about 400 senior employees whose bonuses had been slashed to avoid a 50 per cent supertax on bonuses over £25,000 in the UK.
MYNERS CALLS FOR BANK BREAK-UP
Lord Myners, City minister in the last government and a key figure in the financial bail-outs at the height of the global crisis, has called for a break-up of Britain’s biggest banks. He argues that the future of the industry “lies in less monolithic institutions” and urges the Commission on Banking, to focus on boosting competition.
BARRATT TO REFINANCE £1.45BN
Barratt Developments has opened talks with lenders to refinance its £1.45bn borrowing facilities less than a month after Taylor Wimpey, its largest rival, agreed new banking arrangements. Barratt, the UK’s largest housebuilder by volume, entered preliminary discussions with its banks, including Lloyds, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland, during the past few weeks to secure new facilities by the middle of next year, according to sources familiar with the situation.
HYBRID CAR SALES TO TOTAL UNDER 1M
Sales of hybrid cars will total less than 1m this year and account for barely two per cent of the world passenger-vehicle market. JD Power and Associates estimates sales of the cars, which are driven by batteries over short distances and a combustion engine over longer ones, will reach 934,000 this year, up from 728,000 in 2009, the industry’s worst year in decades.
THE TIMES
CORPORATE BOSSES HEAD FOR WHITEHALL
David Cameron hopes to inject private sector discipline into Whitehall by appointing some of Britain’s top business leaders to new corporate-style boards for government departments. The chief executives of GlaxoSmithKline and Centrica, Andrew Witty and Sam Laidlaw, are among the new non-executive directors due to be announced this week.
DISNEY TO WIDEN APPEAL TO GEEKS
Walt Disney is trying to persuade more women to enter the macho world of science fiction by wooing them with two timeless attractions: shoes and jewellery. Almost 30 years on from the original Tron film, the world’s biggest media company is tapping into the growing female market for “geek chic” with a range of high-end Tron-themed accessories ahead of the release of the sequel.
The Daily Telegraph
METRO BANK RAISES £52M FOR GROWTH
Metro Bank has successfully completed its second round of capital raising and can now accelerate its expansion in UK retail banking. The bank, the first high street bank to be launched in a century, raised £51.7m at a 20 per cent premium to its original share price. Vernon Hill now owns 21 per cent of the bank and has a stake worth £32m.
HEDGE FUNDS HEAD FOR HIGH COURT
ACPI Investments, the London-based hedge fund with more than $2.75bn (£1.74bn) on its books, is set for a High Court clash with a rival fund after the departure of one of its senior managers. ACPI, run by ex-Goldman Sachs colleagues Alok Oberoi and Brett Lankester, has filed a lawsuit against RMG Wealth Management, seeking to ban it from using what it alleges is confidential information gained from Stephen Greene.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
EUROPE
TAX DEAL SET TO PASS SENATE
Democrats are predicting that a much-debated tax agreement will win approval comfortably in the Senate on Monday, with a margin that they hope will add momentum to the deal in the House. But even with President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton and a growing number of Senate Democrats backing the deal, House Democrats remained eager to test whether they could push Republicans to raise the proposed tax rate on estates.
OPEC STEADY WITH TARGET OUTPUT
OPEC left its crude-oil production ceiling intact, despite recent signs that a recovering world economy might pressure the group to open its spigots next year. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries kept its targeted oil output rate at 24.85m barrels a day at a meeting Saturday.