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Friday newspaper round-up: Imperial Energy, Persimmon, Scottish & Southern

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Date: Friday 22 Aug 2008

LONDON (ShareCast) - India's state-owned oil company ONGC has raced into the lead in the bid to buy Imperial Energy, the £1.2bn London-based oil exploration and production company.

State officials in India have given approval to the investment arm of the oil company, ONGC Videsh, to go ahead and launch a full bid, the Telegraph reports. The FT adds that one of the big state-controlled Russian energy companies, either Gazprom or Rosneft, is also likely to be involved in any deal.

Persimmon, the UK’s biggest housebuilder, bravely predicted yesterday that the market would not get any worse, in stark contrast to the gloom being reported by its rivals. The builder surprised analysts by saying that after a collapse in sales in April, volumes had stabilised. It also said that it would open 40 sites this autumn in a sign that it was poised to take advantage of any recovery in the housing market, reports the Times.

More than ten million British households were dealt a fresh blow to their finances yesterday as E.ON and Scottish and Southern Energy became the latest power companies to raise gas and electricity bills by as much as 29%, reports the Times.

Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank are to buy back up to $14.5bn (£7.7bn) of illiquid auction-rate securities as part of a settlement with New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo over the mis-selling of these products to individuals and charities. The trio of banks - none of which has admitted any wrongdoing by agreeing to settle - will pay a total of $162.5m (£67m) in fines as part of the deal, the latest in a series of such settlements, reports the Telegraph.

The European Central Bank has issued the clearest warning to date that it cannot serve as a perpetual crutch for lenders caught off-guard by the severity of the credit crunch. Not Wellink, the Dutch central bank chief and a major figure on the ECB council, said that banks were becoming addicted to the liquidity window in Frankfurt and were putting the authorities in an invidious position, writes the Telegraph.

Renewed doubts about the quality of official data surfaced yesterday as the Government postponed publication of figures on the housing market, and the latest data on retail sales met with incredulity from the industry and some economists. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that retail sales in the three months to July rose by 0.7% and that "underlying growth in retail sales volumes remain positive" reports the Independent.

The Serious Fraud Office is investigating a firm of independent trustees after the Pensions Regulator took the unusual step last week of using its emergency powers to replace GP Noble, which had been managing the assets of 29 schemes. The SFO confirmed on Thursday night that it had begun an investigation into the Nottingham-based firm of independent trustees after the Pensions Regulator handed it information about the firm. GP Noble is owned by Money Portal, reports the FT.

Lehman Brothers, the Wall Street investment bank, is ripe for a hostile takeover, a New York banking analyst has told clients. Richard Bove, from the respected investment bank Ladenburg Thalmann, has told clients that he believes Lehman’s management is unwilling to sell out at a deeply distressed value. “The stage is set for a hostile bid to take over the whole company,” he said. His comments come within a day of reports that a Korean and a Chinese bank had begun talks with Lehman Brothers over a 50% stake. The talks, which are believed to have been informal, were abandoned over price, reports the Times.

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