Wednesday Papers: Watchdog to protect ‘irrational’ consumers

Top stories

• Financial Times: Regulators need to “step into the footprints of investors” – who cannot be counted on to make rational choices – to limit or ban the sale of potentially harmful products, Martin Wheatley, head of the new consumer protection watchdog, said.
• Financial Times: Apple blasted past Wall Street expectations with record quarterly revenues of $46.3 billion powered by the sale of 37 million iPhone devices, giving the company nearly $100 billion of cash in hand.
• The Daily Telegraph: UK debt rose above the £1 trillion mark for the first time on record, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday.
• Financial Times: Standard & Poor’s on Tuesday cut its long-term ratings for Société Générale and Crédit Agricole by one notch from A plus to A and placed on a stable outlook, along with smaller rival BCPE.
• The Guardian: The International Monetary Fund has slashed its growth forecasts for most major countries in 2012.
• Financial Times: Bank of England Governor Mervyn King signalled on Tuesday that the Bank was likely to continue printing money for some time as he warned of another difficult year for the debt-laden economy.
• Daily Mail: A survey of 345 experts from business, government and beyond by the World Economic Forum found 54% expect ‘a major geopolitical disruption’ in 2012.

Business and economics

• Financial Times: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned on Tuesday that Switzerland’s decision to cap its currency against the euro could encourage others to follow suit and boost protectionism.
• The Daily Telegraph: George Soros, the billionaire investor, has predicted riots on the streets and global class war as the economic downturn results in a new "age of fallibility".
• Financial Times: The dollar rose more than 1% against the yen in just a few hours on Tuesday - the Japanese currency’s biggest move against the greenback in nearly three months - surprising traders and triggering speculation that Japanese investors were starting to sell yen holdings and buy assets overseas.
• Financial Times: David Cameron has insisted the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland should receive a bonus of no more than £1 million this year – half of last year’s award – as the prime minister attempts to clamp down on executive pay.
• The Guardian: British oil explorer Cairn Energy was forced into an embarrassing U-turn as it abruptly dropped plans to award chairman Sir Bill Gammell £2.5 million of free share options following pressure from investors.
• The Independent: Francis Salway, the chief executive of the UK's biggest property company, Land Securities, stepped down onn Tuesday denying a rift with chairwoman Alison Carnwath.
• Financial Times: McDonald’s said on Tuesday that its fourth-quarter net income rose 11% from a year ago to $1.376 billion, or $1.33 a share, while revenues rose 10% year-on-year to $6.82 billion.
• Financial Times: The IMF has turned up pressure on European officials to take on more of the burden of filling a widening gap in Greece’s budget by pressing the European Central Bank to take a hit on its €40 billion in Greek bond holdings.
• Financial Times: The European Central Bank and other public sector holders of Greek sovereign debt must participate in the same voluntary restructuring as private sector bondholders, the Institute of International Finance has demanded.
• Financial Times: UniCredit is planning to raise up to €25 billion through the issue of so-called covered bonds as Italy’s largest bank by assets seeks to open up a new stream of funding amid ongoing pressures on bank liquidity in the eurozone.
• Financial Times: Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday that its net income during the final three months of last year fell by 88.8% from the year before to $218 million, or 8 cents a share.
• Financial Times: Yahoo’s revenues slipped again in the final months of last year, declining by 3% to $1.17 billion, as the US internet media company lost further ground in display advertising in the face of inroads made by Google and Facebook.
• Financial Times: Eon, the German utility, claimed to have cleared an important hurdle in its bid to cut costs by shedding up to 11,000 of some 80,000 global employees.
• Financial Times: Quindell Portfolio, an Aim-traded outsourcing company, is to become the first quoted company to invest in the legal market under new legislation, paying £19.3 million for Silverbeck Rymer, a law firm specialising in personal injury.
• Financial Times: Nokia shares dropped by 6.9% to €4.10 on Tuesday after two of company’s key chipmaker suppliers - ST Ericsson and Texas Instruments – warned about poor sales.
• The Daily Telegraph: More than 900 jobs at Petroplus's Coryton oil refinery in Essex and storage site in Teesside hung in the balance on Tuesday after the Swiss company defaulted on $1.75 billion of debt and filed for insolvency.
• Financial Times: Aegis Group has won General Motors’ $3 billion global media planning and buying contract from rival Publicis Groupe.
• The Independent: The Co-operative Group's food business is to cut more jobs at its Manchester head office next month after warning of a financial hit from "some of its toughest trading conditions in recent history".
• Financial Times: Blackstone Group has secured more than $6 billion in pledged capital for a new property fund, largely comprised of distressed assets.
• The Independent: The owner of the Sports Cafe on London's Haymarket and 19 other bars and clubs around the country have been wrapped up in a pre-pack administration, in the latest sign of the downturn which is ravaging Britain's nightlife sector.
• The Daily Telegraph: PZ Cussons said first half profit had slipped 11.7% to £39.3 million; the drop came despite a 10.5% rise in revenue to £414 million.
• Financial Times: Revenues of Carphone Warehouse fell by almost 5% in the third-quarter due to steep drop in prepay mobile phone sales triggered by the reduction in operator subsidies and rising popularity of highly-priced smartphones.
• The Daily Telegraph: Bookmaker William Hill has lost its appeal in a long-running legal row over online gambling brands.
• The Daily Telegraph: Japan has racked up its first trade deficit of about $24 billion in 31 years as the country's ageing crisis hits home and the Fukushima nuclear disaster raises dependence on imported fuel.

Share tips, comment and bids

• Financial Times: Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext have been given some hope of mustering support to save their merger after Michel Barnier, the French commissioner for the internal market, moved to reserve his right to oppose a recommendation to block the tie-up of the German and US exchange operators.
• The Daily Telegraph: The man behind luxury brands Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and Stella McCartney is hoping to spearhead consolidation in the UK insurance market with a £100 million bid to merge his AIM-listed Tawa with rival Charles Taylor.
• Financial Times: Colliers International UK has received a takeover approach from FirstService Corporation, its majority shareholder but both companies declined to disclose the offer price.
• The Independent: Geneity's managing director Will Slater has taken an offer from Playtech for the firm, which has 20 staff, for £11 million.
• The Guardian (Comment): British PM David Cameron is right: Britain's deficit must be tackled. But his failure to fully comprehend the public sector could prove costly.
• The Daily Telegraph (Comment): It’s Davos week, and despite a programme packed with distractions for the elite of world finance, business and public policy, there’s only one thing participants really want to talk about - the eurozone debt crisis.
• The Daily Mail (Comment – Alex Brummer): The foolishness of allowing Petroplus, a highly-indebted firm, to be responsible for an estimated 10 per cent of the UK’s energy supplies plus refineries across Europe has become blindingly obvious.
• Financial Times (The Lex Column): Apple: that it can harvest accelerating economies of scale even at its current preposterous size suggests that we have not seen peak profitability.
• Financial Times (The Lex Column): McDonald’s: the restaurant chain has proved it can generate profitable growth on a truly global basis. Surely, that is worth paying a premium for.
• Financial Times (The Lex Column): Siemens: it was not lingering concern about the top line which dragged shares lower but rather one-off charges, of €344m, were double estimates.