Wednesday Papers: ABN Amro takes 25% stake in The Order Machine - bid news and gossip

Financial Times

* The Order Machine, a new share trading platform equally held by Dutch market-making firm Optiver and Binck Bank, on Tuesday said ABN Amro Clearing Bank had taken a 25 per cent stake in the company.

* The hedge fund industry is seeing a rush of start-ups amid a series of high-profile spin-outs from the in-house trading teams at investment banks; for the industry as a whole, the first quarter saw 254 funds launch, the largest quarterly number since the financial crisis began, according to Hedge Fund Research.

* SEB, the Swedish bank, on Tuesday announced better-than-expected second-quarter results; provisions were down 83 per cent from the second quarter of last year at SKr619m ($84m); the bank’s core tier one capital ratio was 12.1 per cent at the end of June; it reported net profits of SKr1.99bn in the three months to June 30 surpassing analysts’ consensus forecast for about SKr1bn. 

* Barclays Capital has lost the chief architect of its equities build-out after Dixit Joshi resigned to take up an equivalent post at Deutsche Bank.

* DTZ, the property services group, on Tuesday reported a pre-tax loss of £22.9m in the year to April 30, narrowing the £79.7m deficit incurred the previous year.

* Intel reported the best quarter in its history with revenues of $10.8bn, gross margins of 67 per cent and earnings per share of 51 cents; the company's shares rose more than 8 per cent to $22.74 in extended trading in New York.

* Japan’s public pension funds were last year net sellers of Japanese government bonds for the first time in nearly a decade.

* Five Chicago-based trading groups have joined forces with CME Group to launch a new futures exchange for trading interest rate swap derivatives.

* BMW has increased its 2010 profit and sales forecast.

* Citigroup sells off its interests in $5bn of private equity assets.

* French hypermarket group Carrefour plans to pull out of Thailand.