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Tuesday newspaper round-up: BP, AB Foods, Cheyne Capital

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Date: Tuesday 17 Jun 2008

LONDON (ShareCast) - A dispute between BP and its Russian partners over the future of their TNK-BP joint venture has escalated into open warfare, with the UK oil giant threatened with a legal showdown and the company's chairman, Peter Sutherland, accused of using Nazi propaganda tactics.

In an extraordinary series of attacks on BP yesterday, Mikhail Fridman, billionaire chairman of TNK-BP, said he would ask the courts to remove the venture's chief executive, Bob Dudley, and halt an "illegal" shareholder meeting next week, reports the Telegraph.

The Times adds that Fridman and his co-investors Len Blavatnik and Viktor Vekselberg had asked BP to grant them an option to exchange their stake in TNK-BP for shares in BP.

Primark, owned by AB Foods, is to drop three Indian companies that make thousands of clothes for its stores after discovering they had sub-contracted work out to companies that, in some cases, used children for embroidery work. The move comes after an investigation by the BBC Panorama team whose findings are due to be broadcast next Monday. Primark insisted that at no time was it aware that children were being used to finish the products, writes the Times.

Goldman Sachs is close to finalising a plan to restructure a $7bn investment vehicle formerly run by London-based hedge fund Cheyne Capital, in a move that could potentially usher in a crucial new phase in the credit turmoil. The US bank’s proposed reorganisation of the so-called structured investment vehicle is set to be just the first of a number of deals that could see about $18bn worth of SIV assets restructured in the coming months, reports the FT.

Housebuilders' share prices surged by up to 13% yesterday despite predictions from experts that activity in the sector is set to fall to the lowest level since the end of the Second World War. Areport by the Construction Products Association said UK housing starts - where construction begins on site - were likely to be around 147,000 this year, the lowest annual number since 1945, and 27pc lower than 2007, reports the Telegraph.

The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, will use his Mansion House speech tomorrow to unveil the Government's vision on how to bolster the stability of UK banks. Mr Darling will give new details on the wide-ranging changes to banking regulation which will become law this autumn in the Banking Reform Bill. He will also provide further details of the Government's plans to clamp down on short-selling, says the Telegraph.

Short sellers will have to declare their positions only once under the City regulator’s new disclosure regime – regardless of how they change. Details of the new scheme have emerged as hedge funds and their advisers fired a series of technical questions at the watchdog about how the new rules would operate in practice, which it will answer at length on Tuesday. It also became clear small investors wagering as little as £12,500 through spread bets on small companies involved in rights issues could be forced to publish their names under the rules, says the FT.

Nationwide Building Society has increased its mortgage rates by half a point for the second time in two weeks. Borrowers with a 5% stake in their homes now pay nearly 8% for new deals. Barclays stopped offering two-year fixed-rate home loans — the most popular type of mortgage. Average two-year mortgage rates have risen to 6.75%, the highest level since 1998, when the Bank base rate was above 7%. The base rate today is 5%, reports the Times.

The former head of of the Office of Fair Trading, Sir Bryan Carsberg, urged the Government yesterday to regulate estate agents and to make Home Information Packs (Hips) voluntary, as he published conclusions from his year-long review into the housing market.Much of the 56-page report is essentially a blueprint for regulation of the estate agency sector, building on Sir Bryan's belief that Britons are vulnerable when buying a property, reports the Independent.



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