MONDAY
HBOS, Britain’s fifth-largest bank, formally complains to the European Commission about close links between the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Santander Central Hispano, the Spanish Bank that is bidding more than £8 billion for Abbey. Santander and RBS own shares in one another, and have non-executive directors in common. HBOS is expected to launch a counterbid for Abbey, and is understood to have been given access to its books. Glenmorangie, Britain’s biggest-selling single malt whisky, is put up for sale. The MacDonald family, which owns more than 50 per cent of the company, appoints NM Rothschild, the City investment bank, to sound out potential purchasers, and looks likely to pocket more than £100 million from the sale.
TUESDAY
The Financial Services Authority says that the misreporting of a quarter of Shell’s oil and gas reserves was part of an attempt over several years to boost its poor exploration performance. The FSA’s report accuses Shell of market abuse by announcing false oil reserves between 1998 and 2003, implicating several major executives in the scandal, including Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, former chairman of Shell’s committee of managing directors. The FSA imposes a £17 million fine, the largest in its history, for misconduct amounting to market abuse. Investors look set to reject Lord Kirkham’s £496 million attempt to take DFS private. A group of institutional investors are disatisified with the 45p-a-share offer, insisting it undervalues the company.
WEDNESDAY
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A Geneva tribunal accuses Alfa Group, BP’s Russian oil partner, of taking part in a scheme to acquire illegally a controlling stake in MegaFon, a billion-dollar Russian mobile phone company. The ruling is a setback to the ambitions of Mikhail Fridman, a billionaire entrepreneur who shares control of TNK-BP, the venture that houses the British oil group’s Russian operations. Two top executives in Yell! share £15.8 million, following the sale of half their shares in the publisher of Yellow Pages. John Condron, chief executive, sells £10.9 million of shares at 40p a share, and John Davis, chief financial officer, sells shares worth £4.9 million. The sale, amounting to 0.7 per cent of the whole company, is timed about a month after a lock-in period expires.
THURSDAY
The number of new home loans suffered its largest fall for a decade last month, it emerges, signalling that Britain’s property boom may be coming to an end. Mortgages approved by the country’s leading banks between June and July dropped a seasonally adjusted 16 per cent. Price surveys from both Nationwide and Halifax do not reveal falls in house prices, but economists believe that the property market is on the turn. Brian McGowan, Rentokil Initial’s chairman, rules out a break-up of the services group as he reveals the results of his strategic review. Shares in the group fall nearly 4 per cent to 147p on the news.
WINNER OF THE WEEK
Henry Engelhardt, 46, the chief executive of Admiral Group, will be £128 million richer after the specialist car insurer’s flotation next month. His stake of 14 per cent in Admiral will rise to 19 per cent as part of a staff and management incentive scheme. The insurer is expected to be valued at £675 million.