14th Sep 2015 10:27
LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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Glencore said the board of the company behind the Katanga mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo has confirmed it will suspend copper and cobalt production at the site for 18 months. The company said Katanga Mining Ltd, of which Glencore owns 74%, has confirmed the suspension and has said it will continue with the planned USD880.0 million investment into ongoing processing plant upgrades and the waste stripping of the KOV and Mashamba pits at the site. Glencore said the Whole Ore Leach project at the site is currently on schedule and budget and is set to be completed in the first half of 2017. It estimated this will improve copper recoveries from the site and will cut unit costs for when the mine reopens.
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Testing, inspection and certification services company Intertek Group said it has acquired Denmark-based Dansk Institut for Certificering for an undisclosed amount. The FTSE 100 company said Dansk Institut is a leading certification body in Denmark and will allow it to expand its presence in the Nordic market.
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A number of major banks have agreed to a USD1.87 billion settlement to resolve allegations that they conspired to limit competition in the credit default swaps market, Bloomberg reported. Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and HSBC Holdings all are understood to have reached an agreement in principle with a group of investors. Barclays and The Royal Bank of Scotland Group are also understood to be among the banks involved with the case.
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Separately, RBS is understood to have hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch to prepare the London stock market listing of its Williams & Glyn spin-off, The Daily Telegraph reported. The initial public offering of the business is due to take place next year and is it thought the bank will look to raise GBP1.5 billion from the float, according to the newspaper.
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The chief executive of education and publishing company Pearson has said the company intends to keep hold of its stake in book publisher Penguin Random House until at least 2017, Bloomberg reported. Speaking to Bloomberg TV, John Fallon said Pearson is unlikely to exercise its option to sell its 47% stake in the publisher. It will be able to sell the stake as early as next month under its agreement with Bertelsmann AG, the German publisher which owns the other 53% of the business.
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Shire is weighing options for sweetening its multibillion-dollar, all-stock offer for US biotechnology firm Baxalta Inc by putting cash into shareholders' hands sooner, the Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter. The Dublin-based drug maker's unsolicited proposal-disclosed last month and valued at about USD30.0 billion based on Shire's stock price at the time-excluded any cash. Shire said instead it would return cash to Baxalta investors by launching a share buyback program "promptly after" the close of the deal. Last Month, Baxalta, which was spun off from healthcare company Baxter International in early July, rejected an unsolicited USD30 billion takeover bid from Shire, saying that its board of directors determined the offer was not in the best interests of Baxalta or its shareholders.
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Kuwait has agreed to buy 28 Typhoon fighter jets from the Eurofighter consortium of which BAE Systems is a member, The Telegraph reported. The newspaper said the sale is a vote of confidence for the jet, which has recently lost out on export orders to France’s Rafale jet. The sale was lead by fellow consortium member Alenia Aermacchi/Finmeccanica of Italy.
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Trinity Mirror confirmed it is in talks with Local World Holdings for the potential acquisition of the shares in the company it does not already own. It noted that there can be no certainty any agreement will be reached, and said it will make a further announcement will be made if and when it is appropriate. Local World is a regional media newspaper publisher, with more than 100 print titles and 70 websites. Daily Mail and General Trust owns a 38.7% stake in Local World.
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MARKETS
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UK indices traded flat to higher disregarding weak economic data from China over the weekend. Miners are lending support to the FTSE 100, with BHP Billiton shares upgraded to Buy by Jefferies.
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FTSE 100: up 0.7% at 6,161.26
FTSE 250: up 0.2% at 17,009.03
AIM ALL-SHARE: flat at 733.85
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GBP: up at USD1.5439
EUR: flat at USD1.1331
GOLD: flat at USD1107.45 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD47.65 a barrel
(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Veteran left-wing politician Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of Britain's Labour Party in a landslide vote on Saturday that was expected to take the party to the left. Following a campaign that saw him move from rank outsider to frontrunner, Corbyn took 60% of the votes cast against three other candidates in the first round. Corbyn, 66, celebrated his win by saying his campaign "showed our party and our movement passionate, democratic, diverse, united and absolutely determined in our quest for a decent and better society that is possible for all."
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Bank of England policymaker Martin Weale has added to the speculation that higher interest rates may be drawing near in the UK after he said rates may have to rise "relatively soon" in a comment piece written for the Scotland on Sunday newspaper. Weale said UK wages were storing up inflationary pressures which the central bank will have to address and said that, while the slowdown in the Chinese economy does pose a risk to the UK's economic health, he said the Bank of England could reverse the rate rise if necessary.
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Eurozone industrial production grew more-than-expected in July, marking its biggest gain in five months, provisional data from Eurostat showed. Production rose 0.6% month-on-month following a 0.3% slump in June, which was revised from 0.4%. Economists had expected 0.3% gain. The latest growth was the first in three months and the biggest since February, when production rose 0.9%.
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Two economic reports added fuel to concerns about slowing economic growth in China. Industrial production in the country was up by 6.1% year-on-year in August, according to the country's National Bureau Of Statistics. This was marginally better than the 6.0% growth reported in July, but below expectations of 6.4%. In addition, fixed-asset investment in non-rural areas of the country rose by 10.9% in the first eight months of the year, but this was also below expectations of 11.10% and slower than the 11.20% increase measured for the first seven months. However, retail sales in China grew 10.8% year-on-year in August, beating the 10.5% consensus and July reading.
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China has issued a guideline on reforming state-owned enterprises, with a goal of making them fully independent market entities, according to a report. The guideline called for mixed ownership, improved state assets management and prevention of the erosion of state assets, Xinhua news agency reported. The 20-page guideline was jointly issued on August 24 by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council. "SOE reform should follow the rules and laws of market economy for enterprise development, and adhere to...separation of ownership and management," the document said. China's state-owned enterprises dominate the telecoms, shipping, securities, banking and oil and gas sectors.
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China and the US have reached an agreement on combating cyber crimes, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The agreement was reached during a visit by President Xi Jinping's special envoy Meng Jianzhu, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee.
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Germany is immediately imposing emergency border controls with Austria to stem the tide of refugees, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Sunday, as train service from Austria to Germany was halted. "The goal is to limit the current influx of refugees to Germany and to have them arrive in an orderly fashion to their destination," de Maiziere said in Berlin. The measures were required for "security reasons," he said. According to reports from a preparatory meeting late Sunday in Brussels of country ambassadors at the EU, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary still have objections to Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker proposal for mandatory distribution of 120,000 refugees across the bloc.
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EU interior ministers were later Monday to hold emergency talks on the thousands of migrants streaming into Europe, but capitals remained divided over plans to redistribute 120,000 people, following a weekend of intense diplomacy. The EU has been grappling to find a common response to the biggest inflow of migrants and refugees since World War II. Many are fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, with Germany the most popular destination for most of those arriving in the bloc. EU governments have been at odds on whether asylum seekers should be redistributed across their 28 member states.
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Eurozone finance ministers expressed confidence that Greece would stick to the terms of its new bailout after snap polls next weekend, despite election pledges by former prime minister Alexis Tsipras to seek improvements to the deal. Last month, Greece was granted an EUR86 billion rescue package to stave off bankruptcy - its third in five years - in return for sweeping economic and social reforms, following months of fraught negotiations with its eurozone partners. Eurozone finance ministers insisted Saturday that the terms of the bailout cannot be changed. They were speaking ahead of informal talks in Luxembourg that were due also to focus on Greece's progress in implementing the agreed reforms.
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Swiss and US attorneys-general are to hold a joint press conference in Zurich on Monday on the state of their investigations into corruption in world football. US attorney general Loretta Lynch and her counterpart from Switzerland, Michael Lauber, will give updates in Zurich on the "the status of two criminal proceedings," Swiss officials had said last week.
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Brazilian federal agents are seeking to question former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on suspicion that he may have benefited from corruption at the state-owned oil company, a magazine report said. The weekly Epoca revealed that the Federal Police told the Supreme Court that its investigation into the Petrobras scandal has led to Lula, as head of state and the ruling Workers' Party when many of the alleged bribes and misappropriations occurred.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; [email protected]; @ArvindBhunjun
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
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