WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNINGF
FINANCIAL TIMES
SUGAR TRADERS CONSIDER CAP
The world’s largest sugar exchange and top traders are mulling “circuit breakers” to cap the recent surge in price volatility, people familiar with the discussions said. The ICE Futures US exchange, based in New York, and the World Sugar Committee (WSC), an advisory group of top traders, are setting up a working group to agree on the new “circuit breakers”. The system will interrupt trading when prices move beyond a certain limit.
BOOST FOR GLOBAL GM PRODUCTION
The global area planted with genetically modified crops increased by 10 per cent last year to 148m hectares – equivalent to about 10 per cent of the world’s total area of cropland. The increase was the second largest recorded since the commercial growing of GM crops started in 1996.
APPLE TESTS INVESTOR RIGHTS
Shareholders pushing for changes to the way US company directors are elected look set to gain significant support at a test case vote on the issue at Apple’s annual meeting on Wednesday. In an important indicator of investor willingness to press for greater shareholder rights, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System has put a proposal to the meeting seeking to introduce majority voting on the election of directors.
JP MORGAN EYES CHINA LICENSE
JPMorgan and Fidelity are among the overseas banks and asset managers preparing to apply for trust company licences in China as the sector attracts a new wave of foreign investor interest. Regulators in Beijing are leaning on the country’s more heavily regulated commercial banks to curtail credit growth. However, trust companies, which do not take deposits, are more lightly regulated.
THE TIMES
FIRMS TOLD TO SMASH GLASS CEILING
A clutch of Britain’s most respected companies are among the biggest businesses that have no women directors. The Times has found that 18 leading businesses — almost a fifth of those listed on the FTSE 100 — could be forced to co-opt women on to their board.
UNFAIR ENERGY RULES ATTACKED
The boss of Britain’s most polluting power station has launched a withering attack on the Government’s plans to clean up the industry. Dorothy Thompson, the chief executive of Drax, the publicly quoted company that runs the giant coal-fired power station in North Yorkshire, has criticised the existing rules which mean that Drax is releasing more carbon dioxide than it might. Drax is trying to restrict its pollution by burning biomass.
The Daily Telegraph
DEFENCE SPENDING FEARS HIT BAE
As investors beat a hasty retreat amid spiralling unrest in Libya, defence giant BAE Systems suffered the sharpest slide in the benchmark index. Fears that the Government could put a squeeze on military spending sent traders running for cover, as a committee of MPs attacked the Ministry of Defence’s “continuing failure” to manage spending on major defence projects.
UK FILM MAKER TO OPEN IN DOMINICAN
Pinewood Shepperton is set to announce today that it will open a 35-acre film and television studio in the Dominican Republic to serve South America. The Telegraph has learnt that a ceremony led by Leonel Antonio Fernández Reyna, the President of the Dominican Republic, to welcome the move is scheduled for today.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
NASDAQ EYES A DEAL WITH NYSE
Nasdaq OMX is desperate for a date. A week after a rival, New York Stock Exchange parent NYSE Euronext, announced a $10bn deal to combine with Germany’s exchange operator, Frankfurt’s Deutsche Börse, Nasdaq has been scrambling to find a partner to survive in the eat-or-be-eaten exchange landscape. The New York company, under Chief Executive Robert Greifeld, is assessing whether it can compete against Deutsche Börse to buy the NYSE, people familiar with the matter said.
VTB BUYS STAKE IN BANK OF MOSCOW
Russian state-controlled bank VTB Group has paid $3.5bn to gain a controlling stake in Bank of Moscow. VTB bought a 46.48 per cent stake in Bank of Moscow and a one-quarter stake in the Capital Insurance Group from the city of Moscow,