Saturday Papers: EMI to be split between Universal and Sony

Top stories

• Financial Times: EMI, the home of The Beatles and Coldplay, will be split in two after 80 years as an independent British music company after finally reaching a $4 billion deal with Sony and Vivendi’s Universal Music.
• The Daily Telegraph: Political progress in Italy and Greece pushed stock markets higher but economists warned of stormy weeks ahead as attention turned to Spain amid fears it could be the next economy to come under the spotlight.
• Independent: A high-stakes battle over Iraq's oil commenced yesterday after Baghdad threatened to throw ExxonMobil, one of America's most powerful companies, out of the country eight years after the US army toppled Saddam Hussein.
• The Daily Telegraph: The entire European single market could collapse if countries are forced to leave the euro, the head of the European Union has said.
• Daily Mail: Chancellor 'must fast-track 50p tax rate cut' City bosses warn.
• Daily Mail: Sean Quinn, Ireland's once-richest man, has declared himself bankrupt, with debts of £1.7 billion run up on huge gambles in the shares of Anglo-Irish Bank.

Business and economics

• The Daily Telegraph: MF Global's more than 1,000 US staff worked their last day on Friday as liquidators stepped up efforts to unwind the failed broker.
• The Daily Telegraph: Rolls-Royce shares took off on Friday, after the turbine maker posted a reassuring third-quarter update.
• Daily Mail: Metro Bank has lent mortgages to just 100 customers in 15 months as it struggles to compete against the market leaders.
• The Daily Telegraph: The parent company of O2, Spain's Telefónica has posted its first quarterly loss in nearly a decade, after a sharp decline in revenues and restructuring costs in its home territory of Spain.
• The Daily Telegraph: BSkyB's independent directors unanimously backed James Murdoch as chairman on Friday in a letter addressing shareholders' concerns about his suitability following the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World.
• The Daily Telegraph: BP has claimed victory in two "legally absurd" £10 billion lawsuits after a Siberian court rejected claims brought by a minority shareholder in its Russian joint venture.
• The Guardian: Heathrow Airport has suffered its first decline in passengers since last year as airlines cut domestic flights.
• The Guardian: The EU is to set out contentious plans to clamp down on the "oligopoly" of the three main credit ratings agencies and encourage newer European rivals.
• The Guardian: The head of China's biggest ratings agency, Dagong Global Credit Rating, is warning that it may downgrade the US's sovereign debt rating again because of Washington's failure to tackle the federal budget deficit.
• The Guardian: Eurozone crisis hits UK companies; Diageo has axed about 400 European jobs as part of a drive to save £80m over two years; GM Europe has run up losses of $580 million in the first nine months of the year; Vodafone has written off £450 million against its business in Greece.
• The Guardian: Factory gate inflation in UK softened to 5.7% in October, the slowest pace in five months.
• The Independent: Hornby reported its new "lower-spec" locomotive had been a hit with customers yesterday as it posted a 4 per cent rise in half-yearly sales.
• The Independent: Three-quarters of chairmen at the UK's biggest retailers are pessimistic about the economy over the next year, according to the survey from headhunters Korn/Ferry Whitehead Mann.
• Financial Times: Noble Group, the commodities trader, is in talks to recruit Yusuf Alireza – the former co-president of Goldman Sachs’ operations in Asia excluding Japan – as chief executive.
• Financial Times: Allianz reported gross unrealised losses of more than €2.2 billion on its Italian debt, which it will carry forward, although the insurer said the net unrealised loss was €385 million.
• Daily Mail: John Lewis saw a double-digit increase in sales at its Christmas shop and in gift food over the past week.

Share tips, comment and bids

• Financial Times: The managers of Barclays Private Equity have bought the UK bank’s buy-out arm in a move that will see the division rebranded as Equistone Partners Europe.
• The Daily Telegraph: Formula 1 chief Bernie Ecclestone's evidence to a Munich court about alleged bribes paid on the 2006 sale of the motor sport has been called into question.
• Financial Times: Fiberweb, the UK-based supplier of non-woven textiles, will receive £179 million from Petropar, its Brazilian partner, for the majority of its hygiene division.
• Financial Times: Viacom will change its market listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq Global Select Market in a move the media group said would save it significant listing fees.
• The Daily Telegraph: Investors have "no excuse" for owning the shares of HSBC and would be better off owning no bank shares at all, according to Ian Gordon of Evolution Securities.
• Financial Times: UniCredit, Italy’s largest bank by assets, is poised to announce on Monday it is exiting its London-based equity sales and trading business as it launches a rights issue to raise at least €5 billion.
• The Daily Telegraph (Comment): The music's finally over for EMI. Expect a weekend of teary-eyed ageing rockers lamenting the final act for the famous music company.
• The Independent (Outlook): Facebook poked into action by privacy regulator - At last, regulators are coming to the aid of users concerned about their privacy on the internet.
• The Independent (Outlook): So Warner Music, the only one of the four major record label companies to be based in the US, has had EMI snatched from under its nose by French-owned rival Universal Music.
• Financial Times (Lex): Boom times - sudden setbacks are occasionally compensated by astonishing recoveries.
• Financial Times (Lex): Athens and after - investors and policymakers had better prepare for the possibility of Greece’s exit.
• Financial Times (Lex): EMI Music suffers the ups and downs of a media company.
• Financial Times (Lex): Allianz epitomises conundrum for life insurers that need to fund long-term liabilities to policyholders with similarly long-term assets.
• Daily Mail (Comment): The business community and politicians have stood idly by while EMI, home to the Beatles, Kylie Minogue and countless other contemporary artists, is auctioned off like the chattels in a repossessed home.