Cable joins row on M&B
VINCE CABLE, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, has intervened in the shareholder dispute at Mitchells & Butlers, the group behind the All Bar One and Harvester chains. He has written to Lord Turner, head of the Financial Services Authority, querying the level of proof required by the Takeover Panel to rule on allegations of concert-party behaviour. M&B's board had claimed that some investors had acted in concert to gain control of the company. The panel said on Friday that it had found no evidence of this.
Final flourish at Morrisons
WM MORRISON is expected to emerge as the best-performing supermarket chain over Christmas when it unveils a trading update this week. The retailer is expected to deliver like-for-like sales up more than 5% on top of the previous year's bumper festive figures.
It will be seen as a fitting swansong for Marc Bolland, the chief executive, who shocked the group in November by announcing that he was to join Marks & Spencer.
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India block on SocGen
SOCIETE GENERALE has been ordered to stop trading derivatives by Indian regulators.
The French bank has been accused of failing to provide fair and complete information about the trades carried out by its Indian subsidiary. It now has 30 days to reply or file an objection to the order.
The Indian authorities levelled a similar charge against Barclays last month, ordering it to halt sales of exchange-traded notes linked to Indian stocks.
Arvato wins £180m deal
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ARVATO, the outsourcing arm of German media group Bertelsmann, has won a five-year contract to run Microsoft's call centres and technical support for software sales to small and medium-sized firms and resellers.
Some 900 staff in centres including Dublin and Singapore will transfer to the company in a deal thought to be worth £180m.
Arvato also has back-office contracts with local councils.
Email marketer expands
MARK BLANDFORD, founder of the online betting group Sportingbet, is to join the board of Intela Global, an email marketing firm, after a $7.25m (£4.5m) fundraising.
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The company, which counts Citroën, T-Mobile and William Hill among its clients, specialises in helping companies win new business through email marketing campaigns. It has annual sales of about $20m and is based in London but has an operational base in Colorado.
Intela has raised $5m from Bestport Ventures, a private equity firm, and the rest of the new money from ETV Capital. The funds will be used for expansion in Europe.
Blandford, who founded Sportingbet in the early years of the dotcom boom and took the business public, already sits on the board of another Bestport-backed company - he is a non-executive at Mfuse, a mobile-phone gaming operator.
835: The total sales in millions of pounds last quarter achieved by Glaxo Smith Klein from its swine flu vaccine - much lower than the £1 billion forecast by analysts.
2.6: The percentage fall in Glaxo Smith Kline's share price after the disappointing vaccine sales and news that several governments want to cut their orders.