Tuesday newspaper round-up: Black Monday, Asia divergence, Apple, Shell-BG deal off?

A global stock market sell-off and tumbling oil prices have increased fears that some of this year’s largest takeover deals are at risk of falling apart — including Royal Dutch Shell’s $70bn bid for UK rival BG Group. Over the past week, the gap between the agreed price of several takeovers and the market price of the target companies’ shares has widened, as funds that specialise in profiting from these situations have taken fright. - The Financial Times

Chinese stocks sank again on Tuesday with the two main indices opening more than 6% lower, but other markets across Asia began to diverge from the mainland rout. A recovery in US stock futures helped offset another big drop for Chinese shares, with futures pointing to a gain of 2% for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial average. - The Financial Times

Black Monday reviews

A tumultuous fall in Chinese equities dubbed “Black Monday” by Xinhua, the official state news agency, triggered a ferocious sell-off in international markets yesterday as fear spread of the potential impact of slowing growth in China on the global economy. The market turmoil appeared to reduce the chances of the US Federal Reserve lifting interest rates next month and could even spur it to keep them on hold until 2016. - The Financial Times

A collapse in the value of Chinese shares sent tremors through stock markets yesterday, triggering the ugliest day of global trading since the depths of the financial crisis eight years ago. Billions of dollars were wiped off the value of indices across the world in a day of frenetic selling during which the Shanghai composite plunged 8.5pc, its worst daily fall since 2007. - The Daily Telegraph

Sterling and the dollar took a pounding on currency markets yesterday as speculation mounted that central banks in Britain and the US would respond to the stock market rout by freezing interest rates until well into next year. The pound suffered its most volatile trading day against the euro in six years as traders quashed any idea of the Bank of England lifting the cost of borrowing from its record low of 0.5 per cent this year. - The Times

France and Germany have shrugged off a rout in world markets over China's slowing growth, with French President Francois Hollande saying that the global economy was "strong enough" to withstand any such downturn. "The world economy is strong enough to also have prospects for growth which are not simply linked to the situation in China," Mr Hollande told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who added: "I'm convinced that China will do everything it can to stabilise its economic situation." - The Telegraph

Other news

Claims management companies have driven a spike in complaints about packaged banks accounts and a stubbornly high number of payment protection insurance grievances, according to the latest figures from the Financial Ombudsman Service. The overall number of complaints to the ombudsman rose 8pc to 173,994 new cases in the first six months of the year. Just over half of the cases opened by the ombudsman were upheld. - The Telegraph

Apple chief executive Tim Cook halted a 13pc drop in the tech giant's stock on Monday after taking the unusual step of emailing a media organisation to reassure investors about the business's Chinese operation. With Chinese stocks plunging, Apple shares slumped as much as 13% to a year-low of $92 amid a sell-off in the broader US market before Cook took the rare step of commenting on the health of Apple's business midway through a financial quarter. Before the opening bell on Wall Street on Monday, he wrote to CNBC to reveal that iPhone activations in China had accelerated over the past few weeks. - Telegraph

British companies including Royal Dutch Shell, Amec and Weir risk being outmanoeuvred by European rivals in a race for projects worth up to $185 billion in Iran’s shattered oil industry. Despite the prospect of sanctions against the country being lifted as early as next spring, fewer than ten UK executives joined Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, at the reopening of the British embassy in Tehran at the weekend. - The Times