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Wednesday newspaper round-up: Taylor Wimpey, Informa, HBOS

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Date: Wednesday 02 Jul 2008

LONDON (ShareCast) - Taylor Wimpey is set to announce the departure of its finance director on Wednesday as the stricken housebuilder updates markets on an expected capital injection of about £500m designed to see it through the credit crisis, writes the FT.

Peter Johnson, who led the developer’s finances since its creation last summer, will become the biggest UK executive casualty so far of the housebuilding slump. Taylor Wimpey had appointed an executive search firm “some weeks ago” to find a suitable replacement, a person close to the situation said.

Informa, the exhibitions group, has received an approach from a private equity consortium led by Providence Equity, valuing the company at £2.15bn. In a statement after the market closed last night, Informa confirmed that the consortium, which also includes The Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman, had made a preliminary 506p per share bid on 26 June, writes the Times.

Severn Trent could be forced to return up to £40m to customers as Ofwat prepares to bring further sanctions against the water company. Ofwat is expected to reveal shortly how it intends to deal with the company's misreporting of water leakage levels, for which it was fined £2m at the Old Bailey yesterday, reports the Times.

Alistair Darling confirmed yesterday plans to increase the guarantee on depositors' savings to £50,000 if their bank fails, but said that the bill would be met initially by taxpayers, not by the industry. The increase from the existing £35,000 is an attempt to give consumers more confidence in the banking system in the event of another Northern Rock-style collapse, reports the Times.

Moody's, the credit rating agency, yesterday said it was beginning disciplinary proceedings against some of its staff as it admitted it had incorrectly rated about $1bn of complex debt securities due to a computer error. The credit ratings agencysaid that Noel Kirnon, the London-based head of its global structured finance business, would leave at the end of the month, writes the FT.

Countrywide, the UK's biggest estate agency, recently made a tentative approach to buy the Halifax chain of estate agents from HBOS, showing the private equity-owned company is prepared to examine possible acquisitions even with the housing market in free fall. The approach was at an early stage and was rejected by the UK's biggest mortgage lender, reports the FT.

Lord Harris of Peckham, chief executive, chairman and largest shareholder in Carpetright, ruled out a repeat takeover bid for the retailer, which is performing well in a depressed market. "We've got no intention of doing it now," he said, following the abortive attempt last year to take the company private at £12.50 a share, which fell apart after financing was pulled, reports the FT.

The US Government moved a step closer yesterday to ripping off the veil of secrecy that for centuries has protected the identity of UBS clients as a federal court took the unprecedented step of demanding that the Swiss bank hand over the names of as many as 20,000 of its customers. A federal judge in Miami issued an order authorising the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to retrieve from UBS information about US taxpayers who may be using Swiss accounts to evade income taxes, reports the Times.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is looking for suppliers for up to £4.5bn-worth of technology deals to run from 2010 to 2015. The replacement of desktop and datacentre management contracts, which are currently held by EDS and BT and will expire in 2010, will be worth about £3bn, says the Independent.

Starbucks is to close 8% of its 7,000 US coffee shops and drastically cut plans for new locations, blaming over-aggressive expansion rather than slowing consumer demand. Peter Bocian, chief financial officer, said yesterday that while the economy had been "awful", the business at the outlets being closed did not work out like the business case expected,"we didn't believe it was all economy," writes the FT.

The London Stock Exchange's regulatory team is looking into recent developments at Tanfield, the controversial maker of aerial lifting machines and electric vehicles, after its shares collapsed by more than 80% yesterday following a major profits warning. The Aim-listed company's shares had already lost 60% of their value last week on fears of a significant deterioration in trading, after a profits warning from larger US rival Oshkosh, reports the Telegraph.

Three-quarters of pension schemes are now in deficit after £36bn was wiped off the value of the top 200 largest UK privately sponsored pension final salary schemes in June. Research revealed yesterday by Aon Consulting, a pension, benefits and human resources consultancy, showed the aggregate pension scheme deficit of these companies now stands at £30bn, reports the Telegraph.

The number of UK retailers falling into insolvency from outside the food sector rose 25% in the three months to the end of May, with out-of-town stores under the most pressure amid concerns over rising fuel prices. Growing pressure on non-food retailers saw 282 fail in the quarter, according to data company Experian and statistics from the UK's Insolvency Service, reports the Telegraph.

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