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Average pay: The Office for National Statistics said that average gross weekly full-time pay in the public sector was £539 this year, an increase of 3.1 per cent on 2008, while average private sector pay rose by 1 per cent to £465.
Pay gap: The Office for National Statistics said that the average pay gap between men and women continued to decline last year, falling by 0.4 percentage points, but still leaving a 12.2 per cent difference.
Repossessions: The Council of Mortgage Lenders said that the number of repossessions forecast for this year has been reduced to 48,000, from the 75,000 that it had predicted.
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Eurozone industrial production: The European Commission said that industrial production in the eurozone had risen for the fifth consecutive month, sparking hopes that the GDP figures due out today could be higher than originally expected.
US unemployment: Official figures showed that initial US unemployment claims fell by 12,000 to 502,000 in the week ending November 7, the lowest level since January.
Australian employment: The Australian Bureau of Statistics added 24,500 new workers in October, far above the loss of 10,000 which had been forecast. The new jobs were largely part-time positions, which were up by 21,500 last month. Full-time jobs rose by 2,900. Total employment rose to 10.832 million in October, seasonally adjusted.
US pay restrictions: Kenneth Feinberg, America’s Pay Czar, said he was concerned that his compensation restrictions were driving away key workers at bailed-out companies. Last month he ordered pay cuts of 50 per cent for the top 25 executives at the seven companies which had received the largest taxpayer bailouts during the financial crisis.
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National Association of Pension Funds: The industry body, whose members own about 13 per cent of the stock market, has told Britain’s biggest companies to restrict their executive pay and bonuses or risk shareholder revolts as it steps up its campaign to improve corporate governance in UK boardrooms.
Buy-to-let: The Council of Mortgage Lenders said that buy-to-let lending had risen by 10 per cent in the three months to September, compared with the previous quarter. Landlords had been hit hard by the mortgage drought.
Kenmore Property Group: Lloyds Banking Group, which is 43 per cent owned by the taxpayer, has been chasing debts and investments worth more than £700 million after the collapse of the property developer which it had nurtured and bankrolled for eight years. Administrators at Grant Thornton have been appointed to salvage what they can of Kenmore, which is a collection of funds and companies worth £1.8 billion.
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Dairy Crest: The London-listed company reported a 9 per cent rise in half-year pre-tax profits to £38.1 million, from £35.1 million a year ago, after raw milk prices fell and sales of its Cathedral City cheese performed well.
Barry Callebaut: The Swiss chocolate maker reported full-year net profits of SwFr227 million (£135 million), slightly ahead of forecasts. The group, which makes chocolate for companies such as Nestl? and Cadbury, added that the challenging and volatile economic conditions were expected to continue, prompting it to cut its growth targets.
InBev UK: The brewer reported a 3.7 per cent increase in volumes of its own beers in the third quarter, compared with a 1.9 per cent fall for the first nine months of the year as its three flagship brands — Stella, Beck’s and Budweiser — all grew by at least 10 per cent.
General Motors: The American carmaker has been warned by the German Government that it will need to raise the money itself to refinance Opel after GM scrapped its plans for the sale of its European business to Magna, the Canadian car parts maker and Russia’s Sberbank. The German Government had been offering €4.5 billion (£4.1 billion) in state aid to Opel if the company was sold to Magna. The rejection is a blow for GM, which had said this week that it would still be seeking state aid.
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Peugeot-Citro?n: The French carmaker is to offer pre-paid cars by the day. The new business, branded Mu, will be launched in Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam this winter and will reach Britain before the summer.
Porsche: The German luxury carmaker reported full-year pre-tax losses of €4.4 billion (£4 billion). The loss was caused by Porsche’s failed bid to take over Volkwagen, Europe’s biggest carmaker, last year.
Merlin Biosciences: The Serious Fraud Office announced that it would not be bringing any charges as a result of its investigation into the biotech investment group. Merlin had been investigated by the SFO over allegations by a former employee that there had been fraud relating to the third investment fund that Merlin had raised in 2003.
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Kali und Salz: The German salt and fertiliser company said that its third-quarter net income had fallen by 99 per cent to €3.7 million (£3.3 million), from €334 million a year ago, as demand for its potash, nitrogen and magnesium agriculture products dropped.
Salzgitter: The German steelmaker reported a third-quarter loss of €67 million, compared with net income of €252 million a year ago, after a sharp drop in global demand for steel and in sales amid the economic downturn. It forecast that its full-year income would be satisfactory but not at the record level of 2008.
Paddy Power: The Irish bookmaker demonstrated the scale of its international ambitions after signing a five-year sports betting deal with PMU, the French pari-mutuel horse racing monopoly. It also reported an improvement in sporting results during the fourth quarter.
PokerStars: The world’s biggest online poker operator has rescued Cecure Gaming, the mobile phone poker technology platform, from administration for an undisclosed sum in a deal brokered by Cavendish Corporate Finance.
Internet poker: The boom in online poker is over in the UK, according to research from Mintel, which found that after growth of 72 per cent between 2004 and 2007, the poker market had stagnated last year and would fall by 7 per cent this year.
Gala Coral: The debt-laden betting and gaming operator reported a 7 per cent fall in full-year pre-tax earnings to £336 million, from turnover flat at £1.28 billion, but claimed that it continued to “outperform its peer group”.
Hilton Worldwide: The US hotel giant has reduced the value of points earned by guests under its HHonors loyalty programme by about 20 per cent in a move which analysts believe will save the debt-laden company about $100 million (£60 million).
Ladbrokes: The bookmaker has closed its loss-making casino in Paddington, West London, with the loss of almost 100 jobs and has agreed a sale of the licence to Quek Leng Chan, the Malaysian tycoon who owns the Thistle and Guoman hotel chains.
Trinity Mirror: The newspaper group said that the rate of decline in advertising revenues was beginning to slow, as it revealed a 25 per cent drop for the year to date. It said that advertising revenue had fallen by 20 per cent in the 17 weeks to October 25, from a decline of 28 per cent in the 26 weeks to June 28.
Oil demand: The recent rise in oil prices, buoyed by growing global demand and economic revival, “risks derailing the recovery” if it continues, the International Energy Agency said. The IEA, which advises 28 industrialised economies, raised its estimate for global oil demand this year by 210,000 barrels per day, and for next year by 140,000 barrels. The price of oil has risen by 77 per cent this year.
Asda: The supermarket chain which is owned by Wal-Mart, the US retail group, reported that same-store sales had risen by 5.6 per cent for the three months to September 30, from a year ago. But the figures represent a slowdown from the 7.2 per cent growth of the second quarter.
Tesco: The supermarket group plans to expand its presence its China by opening three shopping centres in the first half of 2010. It already serves four million customers a week in the country.
Stobart: The London-listed distribution group, based in Cumbria, has signed a three-year contract with Unilever UK, the consumer goods group. Stobart said the agreement will be worth £60 million.
Intel: The US computer chip group, which has been accused of abusing its market power, will pay Advanced Micro Devices, its smaller rival, $1.25 billion (£755 million) to settle all long-standing disputes over competitive and licensing issues.
Wooga: Balderton Capital, the London venture capital group, has provided €5 million (£4.5 million) of funding to the German social network games developer.
Telef?nica: The Spanish telecoms group reported third-quarter net profits had dipped by 0.6 per cent to €1.99 billion (£1.78 billion), compared with €2 billion a year ago. Revenues fell by 5.7 per cent to €14.1 billion, against €15 billion a year ago.
BT: The telecoms group reported a 45 per cent drop in first-half profits to £547 million, compared with £991 million last year, and increased its cost-cutting target for the year to £1.5 billion, from £1 billion. But the results were better than expected and its shares rose by 3.6 per cent.
O2: The mobile phone group said that it had gained 292,000 new mobile phone users in the three months to September as it continued to outperform its competitors in the UK market.
Air France: The carrier, part of the Air France-KLM group, said it plans to cut fares on its European flights as part of a wider move to revamp its medium-haul service and stem losses. It added that the price cuts were a response to changing customer requirements. Its medium-haul flights account for 40 per cent of its revenue. Earlier in the year it had reported losses of €426 million (£383 million) for the April-June quarter.
AP Moller-Maersk: The Danish container shipping group reported a net loss of DKr3.86 billion (£466 million) for the first nine months of 2009, compared with a profit of DKr17.7 billion a year ago, citing a drop in global shipments of goods amid the economic crisis. Revenue for the January-September period fell by 25 per cent to DKr193 billion, from DKr231 billion a year ago.
RWE: The German utility said that its third-quarter net income had slid by 48 per cent to €569 million (£511 million), from €1.1 billion a year ago, as demand for gas and electricity fell during the economic downturn. Revenue for the period fell to €9.1 billion, compared with $9.5 billion last time.
Centrica: The owner of British Gas, the UK’s biggest energy supplier, reported that it had gained an extra 200,000 customer accounts this year, representing about 33 per cent of the combined domestic gas and electricity market.