LONDON (ShareCast) - JP Morgan, the US banking giant that rescued Bear Stearns earlier this year, has held talks with several interested parties about forming a consortium to break up HBOS, the UK's biggest mortgage lender which includes the Halifax brand, says the Telegraph.



JP Morgan is understood to have spoken to a large Australian bank, thought to be National Australia Bank (NAB). It has also approached private equity firms. Spain's Santander could also be approached, sources said.

The battle for BP’s Russian oil joint venture escalated on Thursday night as Robert Dudley, its beleaguered chief executive, abruptly left Russia, citing mounting uncertainties over his visa and “sustained harassment”, writes the FT.

BP said it would launch arbitration proceedings against its Russian partners in TNK-BP to recover “any and all losses” incurred as a result of a battle for control of the joint venture that has focused on Mr Dudley’s role as chief executive and led to “sustained attacks” on him.

Marks & Spencer's decision to appoint Sir Stuart Rose as executive chairman and chief executive has come under fire from the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum. The body, which represents 48 pension funds with combined assets of over £95bn and owns around 2pc of the retailer, said it thought Sir Stuart had done a good job but that too much power was in his hands, reports the Telegraph.

Seven senior executives at UBS cashed in $21m (£10.6m) of their personal holdings in auction-rate securities just before the market for these securities collapsed, leaving thousands of the Swiss financial giant's clients holding securities they could not sell, according to the Independent.

The head of the City watchdog yesterday warned financial institutions that their business models might not withstand tougher conditions as the global market turmoil plays out. Hector Sants, chief executive of the Financial Services Authority, told the regulator's annual meeting that the crisis, which moved from a liquidity freeze to concerns about capital, is entering a "third act" featuring a downturn in the wider economy, says the Independent.

The Telegraph writes that Britain is consigned to three years of "anaemic" economic growth, one of the country's leading forecasters has warned after retail sales plunged at the fastest rate on record. The economy will suffer its worst period of growth since the slump of the early 1990s, but should nevertheless avoid outright recession, according to the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR).

A former partner at Cazenove, the Queen's stockbroker, has been charged with insider dealing by the Financial Services Authority in the regulator's second criminal prosecution. Malcolm Calvert, a former trader who retired from Cazenove in 2000, is accused of exploiting inside information about planned takeovers in which Cazenove was involved, reports the Times.


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