The Agenda Column:
*Chiefs must get together to save the Rock (NRK) – The extraordinary meeting, which will now be held on 15th January, is the best thing that could happen to the stricken mortgage bank since it was put on a financial drip from the Bank of England. Chairman, Bryan Sanderson must temper his remarks, by recognising that shareholders have rights, that he is accountable to them and must act in their interests. Agenda’s belief is that a private-sector outcome is still the best bet and shareholders should fight for it. In the long term, there is value in Northern Rock’s equity and investors should ensure that when it materialises they have a piece of it. Nationalisation would be only a temporary solution to a problem that will not go away.
*Not the time to sell (property stocks) - Mike Prew, a property analyst at Lehman Brothers, said there needed to be a devaluation for dividend yields to become more attractive. It’s still possible that negative sentiment could drive prices lower. If it is does, some stocks will start to look very cheap indeed.
*Start of new era - Wall Street is going cap in hand to the sovereign wealth funds in China and the Middle East to shore up balance sheets. This is just the beginning. Wall Street still has to own up to billions of dollars of additional losses due to sub-prime. But, as they say at the end of Crimewatch, incidents of this kind are very rare.
The Economic Outlook Column:
*Cheer up, things aren’t that bad – Inflation is low... Growth has been strong... jobs are at record levels.
Business Focus:
*Enter the Dragon on Wall Street.
Feature:
*Bouncing BUPA goes global.
Special Report:
*SALE – Is this retail’s nightmare before Christmas?
The Money Section:
*Take profits from the China boom.
The Inside the City Column:
*Undervalued M&S (MKS) is set for rebound – Expect a cyclical rebound of the shares in the second half of the year.
*Cadbury (CBRY) – Peltz is contributing nothing new.
Further news:
*The board of Northern Rock (NRK) is considering mounting its own rescue bid for the stricken bank and eschewing the two proposals put forward by Virgin Money and Luqman Arnold’s Olivant.
*Greenlit, the TV producer behind Foyle’s War, is in talks with programme distributor Target Entertainment.
*Taylor Wimpey (TW.) halts land deals.
*Bingo! Duke Street sets its sights on Mecca - Duke Street Capital has made an offer to buy Mecca, the beleaguered bingo operator, from Rank Group (RNK).
*Private jet travel soars still higher.
The Sylvia Pfeifer Deputy Business Editor’s Column:
*Sovereign wealth funds: Cavalry or Calvary?
*Kloppers risks being breached – Head of BHP Billiton (BLT), Marius Kloppers wants a friendly deal with Tom Albanese, his counterpart at Rio (RIO). The latter's defence has so far been focused firmly on price, suggesting that even Rio can't argue against the strategic logic of the deal.
*Bargain basement – Although the mood among Britain's most senior businessmen at a Sunday Telegraph lunch last week was rather gloomy, there was a feeling that there is an equal danger that people in Britain could talk themselves into a recession. Sylvia’s top picks are GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), BP (BP.) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
Feature:
*‘This could make 1929 look like a walk in the park’ - The International Monetary Fund still predicts blistering global growth of 5% next year. If so, markets should roar back to life in January, as though the crunch were but a nightmare. There again, the credit soufflé may be hard to raise a second time.
Profile:
*Clinton Lewin, managing director of Clinton Cards (CC.). A man for all occasions.
The Sunday Questor Column:
*Trinity Mirror (TNI) – With the buyback likely to underpin current levels, the shares are beginning to look attractive again. Buy.
*IMI (IMI) – Buy.
*Hambledon Mining (HMB) – Buy.
*Impax (IPX) - Buy.
Further news:
*Sir Fred Godwin’s £1-million bonus scuppered by RBS (RBS) share fall.
The Business Feature:
*Great party, shame about the hangover. The year when they drank the credit dry – Alan Greenspan’s warnings of recession gain credence by the day – Growth is likely to be slower in 2008 and credit harder to come by.
The Retail Column:
*Profit warnings: the hottest fashion of 2007.
*Sir Richard Branson has pocketed a £24-million payout from Virgin Rail as his passengers face fare rises of up to 9% and some of the worst punctuality rates in the country. Branson and Virgin Rail’s other main shareholder, Stagecoach (SGC), are sharing a dividend of nearly £48-million, more than double the firm’s profits.
*UK Coal (UKC) gets shock bid from Meinl International Power.
*Shoe chain Dolcis in crisis finance talks.
*Data store, Interxion, weighs £200-million float.
*Vincent Tchenguiz the Iranian-born entrepreneur, is planning to raise £850m from outside investors for a £1 billion London-based environmental fund.
*BAA faces year-end finance test.
*China has begun concerted action to protect its position as one of the world's leading consumers of iron ore and other raw materials by launching a two-pronged initiative to gatecrash the £67-billion bid battle being fought between BHP Billiton (BLT) and rival mining group Rio Tinto (RIO).
*RBS (RBS) cheers property market with sales of £1-billion.
*Tim Weller to take helm at merged Incisive-EMAP.
*BAE expands in US with $450-million MTC Technologies deal.
*Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) blows hot for €1-billion Irish renewable firm Aitricity.
*Sovereign wealth leads buyout revival.
*Europe to be flooded by £31-billion of commercial property by 2010.
*Terry Ramsden, the entrepreneur and convicted fraudster who made and then lost more than £150-million in the 1980’s, is heading back to court as he finds himself embroiled, yet again, in a legal battle involving money. Stockbroker Hoodless Brennan is suing Ramsden in the High Court for more than £1-million, claiming that he has failed to pay them for shares they bought for him earlier this year.
SOME ITEMS THAT COULD INFLUENCE SHARE PRICES
*Turkey has launched fresh air strikes against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, the Turkish military says. Fighter planes attacked positions held by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in a 35-minute raid, the army said. Similar air strikes last Sunday were followed 2-days later by an incursion into Iraq by Turkish troops. Iraq's Kurdish regional government condemned those raids, but Turkey says it has a right to defend itself from PKK attacks on its territory.
*Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has converted to Catholicism.
*It has emerged that nine NHS trusts in England have admitted losing patient records in a fresh case of wholesale data loss by government services. Hundreds of thousands of adults and children are thought to be affected by the breaches, which emerged as part of a government-wide data security review. The Department of Health says patients have been told and there is no evidence data has fallen into the wrong hands. It follows losses of millions of child benefit claimant and driver details.
*A prediction of four rate cuts next year comes in new reports from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) and BNP Paribas. It says that the Bank of England is likely to slash interest rates four times next year in response to a sharp slowdown in growth, economists say. The first cut could come as early as next month, analysts believe, following the monetary policy committee’s unanimous decision to cut Bank rate from 5.75% to 5.5% this month. Four cuts would take the rate to 4.5%, the level at which the Bank started to raise rates in August last year.
*Crisis talks to keep Travelscope world cruise.
*M&S (MKS) hi-tech demands tie us up until cows come home, say dairy farmers.
*Scotland and south-east England saw the biggest house price rises in 2007, a Halifax Estate Agents' survey suggests. Eight of the top 10 towns recording the largest price increases during the year were from the two areas. Montrose in Angus saw the strongest growth, with prices rising 39% on average. Winchester, Hampshire, was just behind with a 38% leap. The average house price was more than £100,000 in all towns surveyed, half had an average higher than £200,000.
*The Queen has launched her own channel on the video-sharing website YouTube. The Royal Channel will feature her Christmas Day message as well as recent and historical footage of the monarch and other members of the Royal Family. The launch marks the 50th anniversary of the Queen's first televised festive address in 1957. The palace said it hoped the site would make the 81-year-old monarch's annual speech "more accessible to younger people and those in other countries".
*For the 45 inhabitants of a remote village in northern Spain, life will never be the same again. The residents of Molledo shared a pay-out of £158-million yesterday on the country's big Christmas lottery draw. The prize is set to transform the village, in depressed Asturias, a region of coal-mining and fishing.
*Rescuers in Tajikistan are trying to reach people trapped by an avalanche that killed at least 16 people. The avalanche hit the main highway linking Dushanbe, the capital of the mountainous Central Asian republic, to the second city Khudzhand. Dozens of cars remain buried under snow, but the number of people trapped is not clear.
*Sea cucumbers could provide a potential new weapon to block transmission of the malaria parasite, a study suggests. The slug-like creature produces a protein, lectin, which impairs development of the parasites. An international team genetically engineered mosquitoes - which carry the malaria parasite - to produce the same protein in their gut when feeding. The PLoS Pathogens study found the protein disrupted development of the parasites inside the insects' stomach.
Compiled in association with HB PLC and WH Ireland Ltd
