WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING
THE SUNDAYS
THE SUNDAY TIMES
SKY SAYS NO TO SETANTA
Sports organisations including the Scottish Premier League may be forced to stomach deeper-than-expected cuts to their TV income after shareholders in Setanta failed to stump up enough cash to keep the broadcaster alive. Setanta’s financial position was so parlous this weekend that it asked arch-rival BSkyB for a £50m advance payment on a deal that would have seen Sky wholesale Setanta to its own Sky Sports subscribers.
PEARL DEBT RESHUFFLED
Hugh Osmond is in the final stages of agreeing a debt restructuring of his Pearl Group insurance empire.
Pearl’s consortium of 17 banks met on Wednesday and are expected to sign off on the deal within days.
The Sunday Telegraph
BA TO RESUME TALKS WITH IBERIA
British Airways (BA) and Iberia will resume their stop-start merger talks within days, despite lingering concerns from some board members that concluding an all-share deal will be impossible. The two airlines are understood to have scheduled meetings this week to see if they can make progress on a deal, talks about which have stalled as the aviation industry’s fortunes have dived amid the deepening global recession.
TECHNOLOGY GIANTS HAVE AN EYE ON SPONSORSHIP DEAL
Samsung and Panasonic are in early stage talks with the London Eye about a sponsorship deal which could give them the naming rights to the tourist attraction. Merlin Entertainments, which owns a majority share in the London Eye and earlier this month unveiled a £12.5m revamp, is holding talks with the two companies.
TODAY
FINANCIAL TIMES
EXECUTION SHARPENS UP FOR EXPANSION ON A BROAD FRONT
Execution, the UK institutional broker, is planning a significant expansion of its corporate broking and advisory services in the hope of grabbing business from distracted larger rivals.
The privately held group last winter hired Simon Brookhouse, former head of global equities at HSBC, as chief executive to take over the day-to-day operations from Nick Finegold, the founder.
NOMURA JAPANESE STAFF SIGN-UP FOR LEHMAN-STYLE BONUS CULTURE
Nomura has persuaded half its jobs-for-life Japanese investment bankers to give up their local contracts and adopt more volatile western deals, in the mould of the Lehman Brothers operations it acquired last autumn.
The Daily Telegraph
RECESSION CLAIMS RUSH WILL DRIVE UP INSURANCE PREMIUMS
A gathering storm of claims related to the financial market is threatening to cost the insurance industry as much as £10bn. The London 100, a group of leading insurance executives, has warned that new categories of claims have begun to emerge in the wake of the sub-prime crisis, financial frauds and the ongoing recession. So far, approximately 300 sub-prime-related claims and 200 Bernard Madoff-related claims have been lodged.
TREASURY SPENDING “AT HIGHER LEVEL THAN IN FIRST WORLD WAR”
The full scale of the government’s spending spree has been laid bare by research that shows the Treasury is now spending more than it did in the thick of the First World War. The revelation forms part of a study that traces the budget over the past century.
THE TIMES
B&B COUNTS £700M COST AS BORROWERS DEFAULT
Borrowers with the state-owned Bradford & Bingley (B&B) are defaulting on one in 20 mortgages and the failure rate is set to go even higher.
Richard Pym, B&B’s chairman, told The Times that the proportion of borrowers more than three months behind on their repayments had worsened since March, when B&B reported an arrears rate of 4.6 per cent, itself double the 2007 figure.
GSK IN FINAL TRIAL OF VACCINE TO FIGHT MALARIA
The world’s first malaria vaccine could be available as soon as 2011 after GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) began an advanced trial of its new Mosquirix medicine. Scientists began injecting 1,200 infants and children In Tanzania with the vaccine last Wednesday.