Thursday Papers: GM filing begins road back to market - other news

Financial Times

* General Motors began its return to public ownership when it filed for an initial public offering in New York and Toronto.

* Coventry Building Society, the UK’s third-largest mutual, increased its share of new mortgage lending in the first half of this year, helping to push up pre-tax profits by 25 per cent.

* For the six months to June 30, Henderson swung to a pre-tax profit of £41.6m compared with a loss of £2.9m in the same period last year; he asset manager signalled that it was still on the prowl for acquisitions.

* Shares in China Everbright Bank finished their trading debut in Shanghai on Wednesday with a gain of 18%.

* Spain said on Wednesday it would restore €500m cut from the state infrastructure investment budget for next year.

* Ukraine unexpectedly put off a decision to introduce grain export quotas on Wednesday.

* Big US banks should be able to meet tighter global capital requirements without having to raise substantial amounts of new equity, according to calculations by Barclays Capital.

* The FTSE All-World stock index is up 0.2%; the UK’s FTSE 100 index was down 0.9%; The mainland Shanghai Composite index fell 0.2% and the Hong Kong Hang Seng index slipped 0.5%; in the US the S&P 500 index is up 0.2%.

* The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that demand for home refinancing loans in the US had risen to its highest level in 15 months.

* Volvo plans to go upmarket and make China its biggest market within five years.

The Daily Telegraph