Monday Papers: US Treasury stumbles selling Citi shares - other news

Financial Times

* The US government is in danger of missing its deadline of divesting all of its Citigroup shares by the year-end after a fall in stock market trading volumes prompted authorities to slow down sales in July and August.

* Japan’s ruling Democratic party plans to introduce a supplementary budget of up to $55bn to pay for further stimulus measures.

* The German finance minister has supported a European Union proposal for tough new rules and fines against member countries that fail to get their fiscal houses in order.

* John Thornton, the HSBC non-executive director who was overlooked when the bank selected its new chairman last week, is set to step down from the board within six months.

* Europe’s central banks have all but halted sales of their gold reserves, ending a run of large disposals each year for more than a decade.

* Senior Irish ministers were locked in talks on Sunday finalising details ahead of a critical announcement on the stricken Anglo Irish Bank.

* Tough rules that require investment banks to hold additional capital against risky assets will hit lending to smaller companies by making it more expensive to securitise loans, bankers and analysts have warned.

* Sir John Beckwith, the veteran financier, will next month launch a fund offering institutional investment in real estate through capital markets instruments such as equities, debt and derivatives.

* At least nine companies are expected to go public this week in the US, which would be the most in one week since December 2007, according to Renaissance Capital; the nine deals are together seeking to raise $3.3 billion firm.

* Agust Gudmundsson, one of the main business tycoons behind the rise and fall of Iceland’s economy, has settled a lawsuit brought against him in relation to a €7.46 million loan issued by Kaupthing.
 
* Regulatory changes that require banks to hold more capital for risky assets will hit UK and Swiss banks that have large investment banking divisions especially hard; new research from Morgan Stanley shows that UBS will see its risk-weighted assets rise 60%, Barclays’ will jump 44% and Credit Suisse’s will rise by 31%.

* Daylesford Organic, the upmarket food retailer owned by the family of Sir Anthony Bamford, the JCB entrepreneur, will open a shop-in-shop in Harrods and a franchise store in Tokyo in the coming weeks.