No surprise that a lot of column inches are taken up with James Murdoch’s resignation...
FINANCIAL TIMES
Murdoch resigns as BSkyB chairman
By Ben Fenton and Kate Burgess in London and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson in New York
James Murdoch on Tuesday stepped down as chairman of British Sky Broadcasting to prevent phone hacking and other scandals at News Corp tainting the UK satellite broadcaster.
Mr Murdoch, who had succeeded his father Rupert as chairman in 2007, will remain on the BSkyB board. Nicholas Ferguson, the deputy chairman, will succeed him.
“I am aware that my role as chairman could become a lightning rod for BSkyB and I believe that my resignation will help to ensure that there is no false conflation with events at a separate organisation,” Mr Murdoch, who served as chief executive at BSkyB from 2003 to 2007, wrote to the board.
Mr Ferguson, who retired as chairman of SVG Capital in March, becomes the first person outside the Murdoch family to chair the company since its formation in 1988. Investors welcomed the decision, with one calling it “inevitable and appropriate”.
There’s plenty of concern for homeowners and for those who want to be homeowners...
DAILY MAIL
Fears for millions of mortgage prisoners trapped by loans taken out during boom years
By Becky Barrow, Business Correspondent
Millions of homeowners will become ‘mortgage prisoners’ next year, ‘trapped’ by loans taken out during the boom years, a report warned yesterday.
Controversial new rules, from the Financial Services Authority, Britain’s financial regulator, which will revolutionise the mortgage market, are expected to come into force next summer. But the report, published by its own consumer panel, warns the rules will ‘potentially exacerbate’ the current lending drought and ‘increase’ the number of so-called ‘mortgage prisoners’. This is somebody who is ‘trapped in an existing mortgage’ deal, who faces being refused by all lenders, including their own, when their current deal ends and they need to remortgage. Typically, they have a small deposit, have an interest-only deal, or are in negative equity, which means their loan is larger than the value of their home. During the boom years, they were allowed to take out a loan - but will not be allowed to remortgage their current deal when the new rules come into force.
FINANCIAL TIMES
FSA urged to act over ‘mortgage prisoners’
By Tanya Powley
A panel that advises on consumer issues has called for the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to strengthen its proposals for “mortgage prisoners”, borrowers who would struggle to move home or remortgage as a result of the regulator’s long-awaited overhaul of mortgages. The Financial Services Consumer Panel, which advises the City regulator on how its rules could affect customers, warned that the current level of protection proposed for these borrowers was not enough. In December, the FSA bowed to pressure from consumer groups and industry bodies following warnings that its package of measures aimed at preventing a return to risky lending would trap millions of existing creditworthy borrowers.
Under its latest proposals, the regulator introduced new transitional rules for existing borrowers that would allow lenders to be more lenient with these so-called “mortgage prisoners” than with new customers seeking a mortgage.
FINANCIAL TIMES
Mortgage fears cloud right-to-buy relaunch
By Jim Pickard, Political Correspondent
The ambitious scale of David Cameron’s relaunched “Right to Buy” scheme is in doubt amid fears that many council tenants will struggle to obtain mortgages to buy their homes in the wake of the credit crunch.
Ministers have suggested millions of social tenants will be able to get on to the housing ladder under the new scheme, which increases the discount available to potential buyers to a maximum of £75,000.
But only a “small proportion” of these will be able to obtain a mortgage given that fewer than 20 per cent of council tenants are in full-time employment, according to Richard Donnell, head of research at property research firm Hometrack.
Banks have tightened their lending criteria since the financial crash of four years ago. The Financial Services Authority’s mortgage market review last December highlighted right-to-buy customers as the most likely to experience arrears or repossession, making banks less likely to lend to them.
Let them eat ...errr...sandwiches...
THE SUN
550 new jobs as sarnie chain Pret spreads
By Rhodri Phillips
Sandwich chain Pret A Manger is to create 550 jobs and open 24 new stores in Britain, it said yesterday. The company will also launch another 20 branches abroad, including France and America. It follows a sharp rise last year in sales and profits — and the success of its two new outlets in food fussy Paris. Clive Schlee, chief executive of Pret — which was founded in 1986 — told Sun City: “We’re investing heavily in future growth. We’ve held prices low and carried on building the business.” Pret saw sales rise 15 per cent last year to £377.3million while profits — boosted by 24 new openings — jumped 14 per cent to £52.4million. The firm now employs around 5,000 in 294 stores. Half its planned new outlets will be in London, with the rest dotted across the UK.
Are you smarter than an 11 year-old ?...
THE GUARDIAN
Wolfson economics prize: 11-year-old Dutch boy makes surprise entry
By Josephine Moulds
An 11-year-old boy from the Netherlands has joined the chorus of people calling for Greece to leave the euro in a surprise entry for the lucrative Wolfson economics prize. Jurre Herman won €100 (£83) in gift vouchers for his devastatingly simple contingency plan for a breakup of the eurozone. Herman suggested Greeks should be forced to swap their euros for drachmas, so the Greek government could pay back its debts with the euros it collects. Any sceptics will surely be convinced by his drawing, which demonstrates a Greek guy, who "does not look happy!!", delivering his euros to the bank. Herman explains: "All these euros together form a pancake or a pizza . Now the Greek government can start to pay back all their debts, everyone who has a debt gets a slice of the pizza."
Goodbye “King of Mining”...?
THE TELEGRAPH
Top JP Morgan banker Ian Hannam resigns over
By Helia Ebrahimi
The City watchdog said it chose to "punish" Mr Hannam, JP Morgan's global chairman of equity capital markets, for relaying inside information about his client Heritage Oil to another contact in 2008. The FSA said that while Mr Hannam "did not act without honesty or integrity" he should have known better because he was "a very senior banker" and "a role model". The regulator said the fine was also intended as a deterrent for "him and others" against committing market abuse.
However, many in the City hit back at the FSA and backed Mr Hannam. Mick Davis, Xstrata chief executive, said Mr Hannam was "a great credit to his profession". Martin Gilbert of Aberdeen Asset Management said his company would not have survived or been in the FTSE without the banker named "king of the miners".
David Davis, the former Tory leadership candidate who has backed Mr Hannam in his efforts to fight the FSA charges, branded the regulator "dysfunctional" and said its case was "astonishing".
Goodbye “King of Bikes”...?
THE TELEGRAPH
Raleigh bikes to be sold to Dutch rival Accell
By Harry Wallop, Retail Editor
Raleigh, once a byword for British manufacturing excellence, is in exclusive talks with its Dutch rival. If the deal goes ahead it would be the latest time the Nottingham-based company has changed hands in recent years, after lurching from one slump to another. Founded in 1890, it once made up to one million bicycles a year from its enormous factories in Nottingham, which boasted its own ballroom and 15 separate canteens, one for each seniority of worker. However, the last bike to be made in Britain by Raleigh was back in 2002; all of its products are now made in Vietnam, Korea or Bangladesh, and it was unable to compete with cheap £100 models sold in the likes of Halfords and Tesco. It is now owned mostly by the management, including Alan Finden-Crofts, the chairman and former chief executive, who bought it for £48m in 2000, but much of that price included stock. He said Raleigh had been "for sale" for some time. It employs 460 staff in total. It once employed 8,000.
Hello new “King of Grocery Shoppers”...
THE TIMES
China’s bulging shopping basket offers increased incentive for foreign giants
They have done it with cars, and with coal. They have done it with art, antiques and mobile phones. Now the Chinese have become the world’s biggest consumers of groceries, ending decades of American dominance with a collective shopping basket worth almost $1 trillion last year.
China spent $976 billion (£609 billion) in supermarkets in 2011, compared with America’s $919 billion, according to research from IGD, the grocery market analysts. The group includes all goods sold by retailers that predominantly sell food.
The speed at which China’s grocery economy has leapt ahead has surprised the market-watchers who had predicted that China would reach the milestone in 2014. “It’s happened earlier, partly because of the prolonged slowdown in the US,” Joanne Denney-Finch, the chief executive of IGD, said.
The findings underline the attraction of China for the world’s largest grocery companies, including Tesco, which established a presence in 2004. The Chinese market is set to expand at an annual rate of 10.9 per cent between 2011 and 2015, double the 4.2 per cent growth expected in America, although sales are accelerating in the United States, IGD said.
Demerger brewing ...
DAILY EXPRESS
WHITBREAD FINANCE CHIEF TO HEAD COSTA
By Phillip Waller
The respected finance chief of Whitbread is to run Costa Coffee, sparking renewed talk that the leisure group may hive it off. Whitbread, which also owns Premier Inn budget hotels and pub restaurants Beefeater and Brewers Fayre, said Chris Rogers would replace John Derkach as the coffee shop chain’s boss in August. The appointment of Rogers, Whitbread’s finance director for the past seven years, is likely to fuel talk that Costa could eventually be demerged. Whitbread’s chief executive Andy Harrison insisted Costa’s future was in Whitbread but declined to rule out a de-merger at some stage. “The future’s a long time and we’ve always said never say never,” he said.
Economy building up...
THE GUARDIAN
UK construction sector data shows strong pickup
By Katie Allen
Britain's construction firms enjoyed a sharp pickup in activity last month as sunny weather and growing confidence among clients sent demand for new jobs soaring and bolstered hopes the wider UK economy can avoid recession.
Following on from unexpectedly upbeat news from the larger manufacturing survey on Monday, a closely watched construction survey put activity at a 21-month high for March. It provided further evidence of a slow recovery in one of the sectors that helped push Britain's economy into negative territory at the end of last year. The report chimes with other business surveys, suggesting that after the UK economy shrank at the end of last year, activity and confidence have slowly picked up in recent months. A separate report from the British Chambers of Commerce this morning pointed to "a welcome but modest improvement in the economic situation".
Talk Sport...
THE INDEPENDENT
JJB Sports' shares soar as it reveals talks with 'potential US partner'
The market value of JJB Sports surged by more than a half yesterday after the embattled chain said it was in talks with a "potential strategic partner" that is understood to be a US sports equipment giant.
Dick's Sporting Goods, which has nearly 500 shops in the US, is thought to be in negotiations with JJB about acquiring a minority stake, which would provide it with funds to help safeguard its medium-term future.
The crisis-stricken retailer, which narrowly avoided administration in 2009 and last year, had responded to a spike in its shares earlier yesterday amid speculation it was in possible takeover talks. JJB said it had "held discussions with its lending bank and a number of potential strategic partners and investors about raising additional financing for the company".
