June, 2009
Profit participating deferred shares, explained
Sort of.
Explained by the FSA, anyway.
FSA statement on profit participating deferred shares
Following today’s announcement by West Bromwich Building Society about its use of profit participating deferred shares (PPDS) this statement sets out how PPDS will be treated for capital purposes by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).
Further reading
Elsewhere on Friday,
- It pays to fail – and how…
- Ken Lewis: stooge or saviour?
- Live-blogging Ken on Capitol Hill.
- £136m for two soccer players might just make sense.
- Wall Street’s toxic message.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Friday’s FT,
Phillip Stephens: Crisis? What Crisis? The resurgence of capitalism
Pace the doomsayers who predicted imminent Armageddon, liberal market capitalism has survived:
BlackRock to buy BGI for $13bn
BlackRock agreed on Thursday night to pay $13.5bn in cash and shares to buy Barclays Global Investors in a deal that will make the US money manager the world’s biggest – with more than $3,000bn in assets under management.
Lewis grilled over Merrill deal
Ken Lewis, Bank of America chief executive, faced aggressive questioning in US Congress on Wednesday over his role in BofA’s troubled takeover of Merrill Lynch last year. Lewis said he had no recollection of asking federal regulators in the lead-up to the Merrill deal for a letter to protect him from shareholder lawsuits.
Koenigsegg set to buy GM’s Saab
Koenigsegg, the Swedish producer of supercars, has teamed up with Norwegian investors to buy Saab, General Motors’ Swedish premium brand. GM plans shortly to announce exclusive sales talks with the company.
Baxi set for De Dietrich merger
Baxi, the UK’s leading boilermaker, is close to agreeing a €1.7bn ($2.4bn) merger with De Dietrich Remeha Group, its smaller Dutch rival. BC Partners and Electra Partners, Baxi’s private equity owners,
Buffini to step down as Permira chair
Damon Buffini intends to step down as chairman of UK buyout group Permira to work on its troubled portfolio of companies and to search for fresh deals. The decision, announced at Permira’s annual investor meeting on Thursday,
West Bromwich seals deal
West Bromwich Building Society on Thursday night agreed a deal with debt holders to allay concerns that it would need rescuing and allow it to retain its independence. The UK’s eighth largest mutual,
Chinalco’s chief defends Rio bid
The chairman of Chinalco, China’s state aluminium producer, defended his company’s bid to double its stake in Rio Tinto, saying the collapse of the deal last week was “totally out of our control”.
AIG says ex-chief’s money to help repayments
AIG on Thursday said it would use $4.3bn it is seeking from former chief executive Hank Greenberg’s firm to repay the US government rather than compensate its executives, in an attempt to defuse one of its opponent’s main arguments ahead of Monday’s trial.
Gilt yields soar on issuance fears
UK bond yields soared above 4% on Thursday amid fears the economic revival could stall due to the vast debt burden taken on by industrialised nations. Yields rose 8bp to 4.01% – a level last seen in November,
Hedge funds see best month in 9 years
Hedge funds returned an average 5.2% in May, the best performance in more than nine years, as they drew more money and global markets rallied, said research firm Eurekahedge, reports Bloomberg. The Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index,
Oil surges on higher demand forecast
Oil prices on Thursday surged to an eight-month high above $73 a barrel after a key energy watchdog raised its forecast for global oil demand for the first time in almost a year. The International Energy Agency cited the “long-awaited emergence of improving fundamentals” to raise its global oil consumption estimate by 120,000 barrels a day,
Microsoft pre-empts EU browser action
The fight between Microsoft and the EU over competition issues in the internet browser market erupted afresh late on Thursday as the software giant sought to pre-empt stringent anti-trust action being planned by Brussels.
Overnight markets: Up
Asian stocks rose for the third consecutive day on Friday, as improved economic indicators pointed to an easing of the US recession and metal prices jumped the most in 10 days. US stocks gained modestly after data that May retail sales rose for the first time in three months,
Kucinich to Ken Lewis: I don’t buy your victim shtick
Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich ripped into Ken Lewis during the latter’s testimony on Capitol Hill on Thursday.
The congressman, among other things, accused the Bank of America chief executive of flirting with perjury in his calculated responses and of “playing the victim”.
Who wants to be a dollar trillionaire?
UBS asked an audience of more than 80 institutions with collective assets under management of about $5,500bn:
Related link:
Russia’s win win – FT Alphaville
The problem with commodity ETFs
The day ahead of the United States Natural Gas (UNG) ETF’s futures roll from the July to August contract, Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix — who has inadvertently become a bit of a lone crusader in the mission to expose the influence of exchange traded funds on commodity markets — presents an impressive summary of the story so far.
CDS report: Markets drift wider, but US banks outperform
This CDS report was written by Markit’s Gavan Nolan
European credit indices widened today, driven by events across the Atlantic. The Markit iTraxx Europe index was trading around 107.5bp, about 3bp wider than yesterday’s close,
Sportonomics – Manchester United edition
From Standard & Poor’s. Emphasis ours:
Manchester United term debt was better bid today after the company confirmed it had received a world-record £80 million offer for footballer Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid.
Wisest is he who knows he does not know
I don’t know anything about cars.
Guess who?
Yes, it’s Edward E Whitacre Jr, new chairman of General Motors! It’s ok though Ed, neither did your predecessors, QED.
In fairness, GM probably needs a chairman that does – like Whitacre – have a broader perspective on the issues at stake here.
Will Ken Lewis convince Congress he really is “good at this”?
Ken Lewis is about to face a grilling on Capitol Hill. The subject at hand: that merger with Merrill Lynch.
Here’s some background to the hearing, drawn from the FT Alphaville and FT archives.
Item one,
On aerospace over-supply
The Paris Air Show starts next week, on June 15, and is traditionally a chance for aircraft manufacturers to show off new wares while one-upping each other with aircraft order announcements. But with their major customers in turmoil,
Corporate credit bears
While rising government bond yields have been making headlines of late, especially in relation to the possibility that they could derail an economic recovery, corporate bonds — which were a bull story in early 2009 — have languished in the background.
US bond yields: Is the glass half-full?
In the world of spiralling US bond yields, all eyes on Thursday will be on the upcoming auction of 30-year long bonds following the Treasury’s sale on Wednesday of 10-year notes which saw bond yields hit their highest level this year.