Welcome to today’s round-up of business news from The Times: what we’re saying, what they’re saying, what you should be thinking from Paul Larter
Top of the home pages
The Times: Microsoft is threatening to launch a boardroom coup at Yahoo! within six weeks if the search engine fails to accept its $45 billion (£23 billion) hostile takeover proposal or start talks.
The Wall Street Journal: AOL will lose two potential partners if Microsoft buys Yahoo!, a further complication for Time Warner’s new chief executive.
Financial Times: The large subsidies paid by electricity users to fund the drive towards wind power are generating profits for existing wind farm owners - without producing many new turbines.
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From the commentators
Rosemary Righter in The Times: The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that Alistair Darling, to meet Treasury targets, will need to raise taxes in next month’s Budget by £8 billion. For political reasons, he will not do it, and for economic reasons, he should not.
Lex in Financial Times: What next for sovereign funds? A large portion of the west’s oil industry was built by exploiting opportunities with government backing. The injection of state capital would bring the process full circle.
Roger Bootle in The Daily Telegraph: With the date for the Budget set for March 12 it may easily seem that the only relevant questions are which taxes should go up and by how much? There is a good case for the opposite.
Good news
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The Times: One year into his company’s five-year environmental programme, Sir Stuart Rose, Marks & Spencer’s chief executive, tells The Times he is already seeing the benefits.
The Daily Telegraph: The Revenue has written to every FTSE 100 finance director offering a lighter touch to tax regulation - if they agree to new levels of disclosure and co-operation.
The Daily Telegraph: T-Mobile is working to secure an agreement between Europe’s leading mobile network operators to reduce the prices they charge each other for web traffic.
Bad news
The Daily Telegraph: British Land, the UK’s second largest property company, is braced for a £1.7 billion hit on the underlying value of its real estate portfolio when it reveals quarterly results this week.
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The Wall Street Journal: A French government probe into Soci?t? G?n?rale’s rogue-trading scandal is expected to report on Monday that controls were too lax.
Financial Times: Leading private equity firms are unlikely to participate in any recapitalisation of Ambac and MBIA, increasing pressure on banks to formulate a rescue package for the bond insurers.
Mergers and shakers
The Times: Punch Taverns, the biggest pub company in Britain, has approached Mitchells & Butlers, its embattled rival, with an £11 billion merger proposal.
The Daily Telegraph: Virgin is losing ground in the battle for Northern Rock after failing to persuade shareholders to back its offer before the deadline on Monday.
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The Nikkei: A $32 billion Russian sovereign wealth fund that launched on Friday will invest in Japanese stocks after receiving a government go-ahead, Russia’s Finance Minister said.
Around Asia
Reuters: Shares in Rio Tinto rose more than 4 per cent on Monday in their first trading in Australia since China teamed up with Alcoa to buy a $14 billion stake.
Bloomberg: The yen fell against 15 of the 16 most-active currencies as a rally in Asian stocks prompted investors to purchase higher-yielding assets funded in Japan.
Bloomberg: Coal soared to a record above $100 a metric ton at Australia’s Newcastle port, a benchmark for Asia, as snowstorms in China, power cuts in South Africa and floods in Queensland reduced output.
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Coming up
The Times: In five years the retail space in the City of London will increase to about 1.5 million sq ft, with an increase equivalent to the new White City shopping centre in West London.
The Daily Telegraph: UK corporate fraud may hit a record high this year as economic growth slows sharply, accountancy firm KPMG has warned.
The Independent: The Qatar Investment Authority is understood to want to increase its stake in the London Stock Exchange, possibly by trying to buy the holding owned by its rival, the Dubai Borse.
Unfinished business: last week wrapped up
Last Monday
Two of BAE Systems’ flagship projects have experienced a massive budget blowout over the past two years, it emerged, leaving British taxpayers facing a £500 million bill.
Societe Generale was warned last year about the suspect activities of Jerome Kerviel as it failed to persuade judges to proceed with a full-scale fraud investigation into the trader, it was reported.
Tuesday
The FBI has opened criminal inquiries into 14 companies as part of an investigation of the subprime-mortgage crisis.
BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster, was ordered by the Government to ditch more than half its stake in its terrestrial rival ITV.
Wednesday
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the second time in nine days, in one of its most aggressive campaigns in decades to boost the nation’s economy.
The Government proposed radical powers that will enable the Treasury, Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority to take control of a failing bank.
Thursday
Motorola, under pressure from the activist shareholder Carl Icahn, said it was considering spinning off or selling its flagship handset division.
Royal Dutch Shell reported annual profits of $27.6 billion (13.9 billion), smashing European company records and prompting calls for a windfall tax on “obscene” oil profits.
Friday
US federal criminal prosecutors are investigating whether UBS misled investors by booking inflated prices of mortgage bonds it held despite knowledge that the valuations had dropped, it was reported.
Exxon Mobil reported the largest annual profit in US corporate history, reporting net income for 2007 of $40.61 billion, beating its own record of $39.5 billion set the year before.
MARKETS
FTSE 100 6,029.20 up 2.5% (Friday close)
Dow 12,743.19 up 0.7% (close)
S&P 500 1,395.42 up 1.2% (close)
Nasdaq 2,413.36 up 1% (close)
Nikkei 13,832.40 up 2.5% (latest)
Hang Seng 24,998.89 up 3.6% (latest)
Sterling $1.967 (latest)
West Texas crude $89.27 up 31 cents (latest)
Gold $915.70 (latest)
Asia
Bloomberg: Asian stocks rose after an index showed US manufacturing unexpectedly increased, easing concerns that the world’s largest economy will fall into a recession. Samsung Electronics led gains among companies that sell their products to the US. Sharp rose the most in two years after reporting higher third-quarter earnings. The MSCI Asia Pacific index was up 1.5 per cent and Japan’s Nikkei had gained 2.5 per cent in intraday trading.
Agenda
Interims
Ryanair (Q3)
Finals
Mediwatch
Randgold Resources (Q4)
SThree
Wolfson Microelectronics
XploiTe
AGMs
Hardy Oil & Gas
St Helen’s Private Equity
EGMs
Amiad Filtration Systems
Trading statement
Sage Group
Economics
CBI/Experian regional trends survey (0001 GMT)
UK Jan construction PMI (0930 GMT)