HEADLINES IN BRIEF: HSBC SORRY, HIDDEN FEES THAT HALVE YOUR PENSION, CALL TO LIMIT POWER OF BANK OF ENGLAND, BRANSON EYEING VIRGIN, BIZARRE TWITTER TREND
GUARDIAN
HSBC 'SORRY' FOR AIDING MEXICAN DRUGS LORDS, ROGUE STATES AND TERRORISTS
Dominic Rushe in New York
Executive quits in front of US Senate as bank faces massive fines for 'horrific' lapses that resulted in laundering money for drugs cartels and pariah states. A report compiled for the committee detailed how HSBC's subsidiaries transported billions of dollars of cash in armoured vehicles, cleared suspicious travellers' cheques worth billions, and allowed Mexican drug lords buy to planes with money laundered through Cayman Islands accounts.
THE HIDDEN FEES THAT CAN HALVE THE VALUE OF YOUR PENSION
By Robert Winnett, Political Editor
Millions of savers are being misled by City fund managers about hidden fees that can almost halve the value of their pensions, a year-long study has found. The RSA report found that 21 of the 23 pension funds surveyed failed to inform people about the charges. Nine in 10 of the country’s biggest pension fund managers fail to warn people about the levies, which typically wipe more than £100,000 from the value of a middle-class worker’s pension.
CITY AM
MPS CALL FOR CAP ON KING’S POWER
By Tim Wallace and James Waterson
Regulators grossly overreached themselves by forcing Bob Diamond out of the top job at Barclays, top backbench MP Andrew Tyrie declared yesterday, accusing Sir Mervyn King and Lord Turner of “handing the chairman a revolver to shoot the chief executive” at the troubled bank. MPs on the Treasury select committee (TSC) also dealt a blow to Paul Tucker’s chances of becoming the next governor of the Bank of England by forcing him to admit he missed signs that Libor was being manipulated.
DAILY EXPRESS
SIR RICHARD BRANSON EYEING VIRGIN RECORDS
Sir Richard Branson is considering a takeover of the Virgin Records label he founded if it is put up for sale by Universal Music to secure clearance to buy EMI. Sir Richard confirmed his interest in joining a bid to buy back Virgin Records, which he started in 1970, describing it as “a wonderful opportunity”.
FINANCIAL TIMES
LIBOR ‘STRUCTURALLY FLAWED’, SAYS FED
By Brooke Masters and Chris Giles in London
Libor is “structurally flawed” and an international effort would be needed to restore the rate’s credibility as the leading benchmark for mortages, derivatives and corporate lending around the world, Ben Bernanke, US Federal Reserve chairman, told Congress on Tuesday.
FINANCIAL TIMES
HOLLANDE SCRAPS TAX BREAKS ON OVERTIME
By Hugh Carnegy in Paris
France’s socialist government is tearing up one of the key labour market measures introduced by former centre-right president Nicolas Sarkozy under his once-winning slogan: “Work more to earn more”. The reimposition of income tax and social contributions on overtime as part of a supplementary 2012 budget going through the socialist-controlled National Assembly this week is the latest in a series of partial reversals of Sarkozy-era reforms since François Hollande won the presidency in May.
THE SUN
I’LL HEAR NO MORR OF THAT!
EXCLUSIVE
By Steve Hawkes, Business Editor
The boss of Morrisons has rubbished claims the wheels are coming off the supermarket — and insists it has never been so competitive. Chief exec Dalton Philips said yesterday it was “preposterous” to suggest Morrisons was losing customers through a push upmarket.He added that sales of the chain’s new value range M SAVERS were growing at 40 per cent.
DAILY MAIL
COLLAPSE IN VALUE OF G4S PLACES FIRM ON RADAR FOR POTENTIAL TAKEOVER
By Peter Campbell
The collapse in value of G4S shares has placed the FTSE 100 security firm on the radar for a potential takeover, City experts said last night. Since the shortfall in Olympic security guards came to light last Thursday, more than £700m has been stripped from the value of the company. With a market value of £3.4bn last night, the firm is well within the range of large US private buyout groups.
WWW.BBC.CO.UK
UK INFLATION RATE FALLS TO 2.4% IN JUNE
Prices in the UK are rising at their slowest rate since the end of 2009, official figures have shown. The annual inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Prices Index fell to 2.4% in June, from 2.8% in May, the Office for National Statistics said. The rate of inflation, which indicates how fast prices are rising compared with a year earlier, is slowing due to lower food, fuel and clothing prices.
…. AND FINALLY …
DAILY TELEGRAPH
HOUSING MINISTER GRANT SHAPPS SPARKS BIZARRE TWITTER TREND
Lord Prescott gets Grant Shapps trending on Twitter after the housing minister appears to "unfollow" many users. Some Twitter users follow large numbers of people, either manually or by using software applications that run automated tasks, known as bots, in the hope that these accounts will follow them back. They may then unfollow them again later.
