Sponsored by Digital Look Events

Sunday newspaper round-up: HSBC, Babcock & Brown, Rentokil

Related Companies

Related Indices

Related Sectors

News for Spread Betters

PreviousPrevious
NextNext

There's a new Investor Edition of CMC Markets' spread betting platform... and it's exclusive to DigitalLook.com users...

Get full details about Marketmaker:Investor Edition here. Advertisement

Date: Sunday 02 Mar 2008

LONDON (ShareCast) - HSBC will tomorrow reveal a record $16bn (£8.1bn) of bad debts at its full year results but seek to reassure investors that it is containing the sub-prime crisis by lifting its dividend in line with its banking peers, says the Sunday Telegraph.

The Sunday Times adds that the shareholder activist Knight Vinke has presented Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC, with four options to sever ties with HFC, its troubled American banking business.

A Consortium led by Babcock & Brown, the investment firm, is in exclusive talks to acquire the Royal Bank of Scotland's rolling stock leasing company, Angel Trains, for a price believed to be about £3.5bn, writes the Sunday Telegraph.

Leading shareholders in Rentokil Initial are demanding an immediate management shake-up at the embattled pest control to cleaning business, including the resignation of Doug Flynn, chief executive, reports the Sunday Telegraph.

Premier Foods, whose share price has collapsed amid fears over the company’s stretched finances, will this week announce a drastic cut in dividends to shore up its balance sheet, according to the Sunday Times.

Britain's largest beds retailer, Dreams, is looking at a stock market listing that could value the group at up to £500m, says the Independent on Sunday.

Fears of a hedge-fund meltdown are rippling through the City, with dozens more funds said to be close to following Peloton into collapse, writes the Sunday Times.

Alistair Darling will not make further significant concessions on either the taxation of “nondoms” or capital-gains tax (CGT), reports the Sunday Times.

The Independent on Sunday adds that the body that represents hedge funds in Britain has warned that thousands of the industry's top traders could be forced to quit the City unless the Government does a U-turn on its new non-dom tax rules.

Aviva, Britain's biggest insurer, is studying the sale of half of its Indian back- office business in a move that would mark a slowing of the outsourcing trend to one of the world's biggest labour markets, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

One of the dissenting family shareholders in the troubled Moss Bros menswear chain is hatching an audacious plan to block an indicative 42p-a-share takeover bid from Baugur, the Icelandic investment group, says the Sunday Times.

Senior management at Close Brothers, including chairman Rod Kent and chief executive Colin Keogh, will tomorrow face the wrath of its investors in the wake of its bungled sell-off which collapsed last Friday, writes the Independent on Sunday.

The Kuwaiti Investment Dar Company (IDC), which owns luxury marque Aston Martin, is set to take a stake in Prodrive, the Oxfordshire motor sport and engineering business, according to documents filed by the company, reports the Independent on Sunday.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is escalating its probe into alleged bribery and corruption at BAE Systems, with one line of investigation being a series of commission payments personally overseen by chief executive Mike Turner during the late 1980s, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

British aerospace firms were celebrating an order bonanza this weekend, after EADS, the parent company of Airbus, won a $35 billion (£18 billion) Pentagon contract for tanker aircraft, says the Sunday Times.

Permira, the private equity giant, is mulling the £1bn sale of Jet Aviation Group, its Swiss-based executive jet business, writes the Independent on Sunday.

The Australian banking group Macquarie is preparing to swoop on one or more of Britain's largest airports if their owner, BAA, is obliged to sell them due to financial or regulatory difficulties, reports the Sunday Telegraph.

Rival Russian oligarchs have hired a raft of London-based bankers as they gear up to bid for Norilsk Nickel, the mining giant valued at $54bn (£27bn), which has one of the worst pollution records in the world, according to the Independent on Sunday.

Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, one of America's oldest private equity firms, has unveiled a $4.5bn (£2.3bn) fundraising exercise, defying concerns over the global credit crunch, says the Independent on Sunday.