Lunch Wrap

A round up of the top news and views on FT Alphaville and FT.com as at noon, London time.
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On FT Alphaville this morning,

- Reuters terminals across the world will be churning out details of new ownership of the 150-year-old news and data service on Tuesday as the boards of Reuters and Thomson agreed to combine their businesses. And we revealed what Tom Glocer, Reuters CEO and head of the new company, told his employees.

- Hargreaves Lansdown’s IPO was priced right at the top of the indicated range, at 160p a share, giving the provider of Sipps, Isas and wraps a  market value of £759m. The shares then surged as much as 33 per cent as trading got underway.
- HeidelbergCement and Hanson have recommended a takeover of the iconic UK heavy materials company for around £8bn.

- Back in November, 3i, the London-listed private equity group, launched a team who would bring their private equity skills to publicly listed small to mid-cap companies. Now, 3i Quoted Private Equity (or 3i QPE) is aiming to raise at least £400m through a listing on the LSE’s main market.

On FT.com this morning,

- The fervour for new listings in mainland China continued on Tuesday when shares in Bank of Communications surged 71 per cent in the first morning of trading on the Shanghai stock market despite continued warnings about the risk of a stockmarket bubble.

-  HSBC Finance Corporation’s quarterly net earnings dropped 39 per cent to $541m as the lender almost doubled its provision for credit losses, in a further sign of the deterioration of the sub-prime lending market in the US.

- Fidelity has appointed home-grown fund manager Sanjeev Shah as the new manager to take over its flagship Fidelity Special Situations fund. The long-awaited announcement will see Mr Shah take full control of the £3.3bn fund at the beginning of next year.

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