Friday Papers: Blackstone reports 23% rise in quarterly profits - other news

And Santander presses ahead with plans to list part of its UK business on the London Stock Exchange.

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by Himanshu Singh on Oct 29, 2010 at 04:50

Financial Times

* Santander is pressing ahead with plans to list part of its UK business on the London Stock Exchange, which will replicate last year’s $7 billion flotation of its Brazilian subsidiary

* Blackstone on Thursday reported a 23% rise in third-quarter profits, buoyed by gains in its real estate portfolio; assets under management rose 8% to $119 billion.

* Retail sales continued to rise quickly in October, according to the CBI’s distributive trades survey.

* Thousands of complaints to water companies went unanswered for several years, according to Ofwat; the disclosures came as the industry becomes increasingly upbeat about its prospects during the current five-year pricing regime.

* Vince Cable’s efforts to sell his local enterprise partnerships as an effective tool to bolster the regions fell flat on Thursday as politicians bemoaned the gaping holes in nationwide coverage.

* Margaret Thatcher’s first government drew up secret plans to “educate” the British public in the “economic facts of life” and to persuade them to embrace spending cuts and lower pay.

* Asda spends £100 million to improve the quality of the group’s core own-brand range but Andy Clarke assures that ‘price will still be the cornerstone of our proposition’.

* DTZ, the international real estate consultancy, warned that it was on course to report a loss for its financial year owing to weaker than expected conditions in the commercial property market.

* Shares in Promethean World fell 17% on Thursday after the educational IT provider said sales growth was slowing amid uncertainty in the US, its biggest market.

* Shell warns that the fallout from the moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of BP’s oil spill during the summer could last until next year.

* Virgin Media reported a 6.4% rise in revenues for its third quarter, ahead of analysts’ expectations; sales of £978 million were accompanied by an 11% increase in operating cash flow to £387 million.