Saturday Papers: Pershing and Vornado reveal JC Penney stake - tips, comment and bids

And Mail.ru, Russia’s largest internet group with a 10% stake in Facdbook, is set for $5 billion London listing of a subsidiary.

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by Himanshu Singh on Oct 09, 2010 at 04:30

Financial Times

* Pershing Square, the activist investor fund, and Vornado, the real estate investment trust, have acquired control of a combined 26.7% of JC Penney.

* Mail.ru - Russia’s largest internet group, which also owns about 10% of privately-held Facebook - offers City investors a rare chance to take an indirect stake in the social networking site via the London listing of a subsidiary worth up to $5bn.

* Thomas Cook and The Co-operative Group have joined forces to create the market leader in high street travel shops with a non-cash merger; Thomas Cook will own 70% of the combined entity.

* Tony Shiret, the highly rated retail analyst, has dropped his “sell” recommendation to "neutral" on Marks and Spencer for the first time in almost three years.

Weekend Share Watch

* Gemfields sparkles in luxury goods recovery; shares doubled to 10½p on Wednesday after it reported a maiden profit.

* Regus shareholders set for further bumpy ride.

The Lex Column

* App stores - The white goods of the 21st century.

* Seattle tax referendum - Richest inhabitants of US’s wettest city get all het up about tax rises.

* Stock recommendations - Proportion of ‘holds’ from stock analysts has never been higher.

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2 comments so far. Why not have your say?

Is it ‘coincidental’ that Cooperative Bank/Smile are phasing out Visa Electron Cards for its customers?.

Visa Electron is the one form of payment related to the travel industry which has the lowest fees related to booking flights, hotel accommodation and car hire.

Note, Visa itself is not phasing out the Visa Electron Card Brand.

Cooperative appear to be using their positions in banking and travel to force higher transaction charges on its customers, which they will be in a position to take advantage of through their Cooperative travel arm.

The additional transaction fees of booking 2 flights on flybe.com, between a paying via a Visa Electron Card compared to a Visa Debit Card is £18.

This change has been forced on existing customers, by reclassifying the bin number (first 4 digits - 4508) of existing issued Cooperative/Smile Visa Electron Cards with the fees related to Visa Debit Cards (4988-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx), so both Cooperative Cards are recognized by retailers as ‘Visa Debit’.

No notification has been given to existing customers of this change though their terms and conditions. This is a clear breach of regulatory rules.

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Adam Howson

Oct 11, 2010 at 12:45

If anyine has the comment in the FT on Regus would love to see please cant find it anywhere?

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