Wednesday Papers: Soros in talks to buy stake in BSE - bid news and gossip

Financial Times

* George Soros is in final talks to buy Dubai Holding’s 4% stake in the Bombay Stock Exchange; sources said Soros Fund Management is planning to pay about $40m for its stake, valuing Asia’s oldest bourse at about $1bn.

* Reacting to the report from the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation that accused private equity of producing disappointing returns, the Private Equity Council on Tuesday said the report “has at best a tangential relationship to the facts”.

* General Electric has agreed to pay $23.5m to settle allegations from US regulators that its subsidiaries bribed Iraqi officials to win contracts under the United Nations Oil for Food Programme between 2000 and 2003.

* A court-appointed examiner of the $8.3bn leveraged buy-out of Tribune Co in 2007 said it had found evidence of “dishonesty and lack of candour” in the second part of a two-step transaction that pushed the newspaper publisher into insolvency.

* Google is to power Yahoo Japan’s internet search and advertising platform.

* Toyota is planning to expand its production in China, Brazil and US.

* India plans to start conducting twice-yearly stress tests on its banks.

* Eurozone mortgage borrowing grew last month at the fastest pace in almost two years.

* The government is “minded” to scrap an informal code guaranteeing public sector benefits for thousands of outsourced private sector jobs, threatening a confrontation with unions.

The Daily Telegraph

* Tony Hayward has resigned as chief executive of BP “for the good of the company”, claiming that he was “demonised and vilified” in the US for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.