| CATEGORY: PRESS ROUND-UP SHORT SECTOR: BANKS |
Sunday newspaper round-up: Hypo Real Estate, HBOS, Interest rates |
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Sun 05 Oct 2008
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LONDON (SHARECAST) - Hypo Real Estate was racing to find a way to save itself on Sunday after the German property lender revealed the collapse of a previous rescue plan. A consortium of banks that was to provide HRE with an emergency liquidity line had now declined to do so, says the FT.
The Independent on Sunday adds that the German Finance Ministry on Sunday urged all parties involved to help save imperilled lender Hypo Real Estate as officials from the central bank, the financial regulator and the government met to discuss the next move.
HBOS, the beleaguered bank that is being taken over by Lloyds TSB, is preparing to sell Private Finance Initiative (PFI) investments worth up to £300m, says the Independent on Sunday.
The Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, is under growing pressure to cut interest rates by a quarter, if not a half point, when the Monetary Policy Committee meets on Wednesday, to stave off a full-blown recession, reports the Independent on Sunday.
Citigroup said it won a court order late on Saturday blocking Wells Fargo & Co. from buying hobbled U.S. bank Wachovia Corp until the court rules otherwise. Citigroup, which planned to buy Wachovia’s banking assets for $2.2 billion, said New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos granted an injunction extending Wachovia’s agreement to negotiate exclusively with Citigroup, writes the FT.
Gordon Brown agreed a deal with his European counterparts to help small businesses by urgently releasing the European Investment Bank’s full €15bn fund to ease the lending freeze at banks, reports the Sunday Telegraph.
Justin King, J Sainsbury's chief executive, will reveal this week the extent to which the supermarket has been dented by the consumer slowdown and fierce competition from discount rivals such as Aldi and Lidl. Wednesday's trading statement is expected to show like-for-like sales growth of around 4 per cent, according to the Independent on Sunday.
The Lehman Brothers administration will not be completed until 2018 at the earliest, according to the man in charge of selling and winding down the failed bank's European assets, says the Independent on Sunday. Tony Lomas, the chairman of business restructuring at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), said: "Based on industry experience, including cases like Polly Peck, Enron and [Robert] Maxwell, it could take a decade or more to close this administration, not least because it threatens to become bigger and more complex than any of these previous cases."
Meanwhile, the Sunday Times reported that JP Morgan has been accused by its Wall Street rivals of dealing the final hammer blow that forced Lehman Brothers into collapse in a sensational claim that threatens to spark a colossal legal battle. The giant American bank is alleged to have frozen $17 billion (£9.6 billion) of cash and securities belonging to Lehman on the Friday night before its failure.
September has proved a deeply painful month for hedge funds, even for those regarded as among the savviest in the industry. The sheer scale of the turmoil, the impact of new restrictions on short selling and tight borrowing conditions have resulted in sharp losses for them, writes the FT.
The celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, Newcastle Utd football club and the property tycoon Candy brothers, as well as several high street fashion chains, will all feel the chill from Iceland's economic meltdown. They are just some of the better-known names backed by Iceland's biggest banks, Kaupthing and Landesbanki, which are facing difficulties as the Icelandic government meets this weekend to draw up an emergency package for its crisis-hit economy, reports the Independent on Sunday.
National Grid will buck market conditions this week when it unveils a £17.5 billion capital-expenditure programme, one of the biggest in the UK corporate sector, according to the Sunday Times.
London City airport has cooled its interest in the £100m auction of nearby Southend airport, as it turns its attention to the imminent sale of Gatwick, says the Independent on Sunday.
Carlos Ghosn, the chief of Renault and Nissan, has called for European governments to support their motor industry in the way that America has pledged $25 billion of soft loans to speed development of more fuel-efficient, low-emission vehicles, reports the Sunday Times.
Euler Hermes, one of the UK's biggest credit insurers, has withdrawn cover for suppliers to a number of retailers run by the troubled Icelandic investment group Baugur, writes the Independent on Sunday.
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