Tuesday Papers: Greek nightmare laid bare

Top stories

• Financial Times: A “strictly confidential” report on Greece’s debt projections prepared for eurozone finance ministers reveals Athens’ rescue programme is way off track and suggests the Greek government may need another bail-out once a second rescue – set to be agreed Monday night – runs out.
• Financial Times: Executives responsible for mis-selling loan insurance at Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays look set to keep their past bonuses.
• Financial Times: Crude oil prices hit an eight-month high on Monday above $121 a barrel as the threat of a large supply disruption involving Iran became the talk of the energy market.
• Financial Times: The European Central Bank’s government bond purchases came to a halt last week for the first time since August in a sign the emergency debt buying programme is being wound down.
• Financial Times: Britain’s Council of Mortgage Lenders said gross mortgage lending totalled £10.5 billion in January, up 10% from levels in January 2011.
• Daily Mail: Last month, the average property asking price in London was £233,252, compared to £224,060 in January, according to figures from the Rightmove House Price Survey.
• The Guardian: Foxconn, which is one of Apple's main contractors, said on Monday it had raised wages by up to 25% after a spate of suicides last year and reports of long hours for the hundreds of thousands of staff.
• The Independent: BP investors took heart Monday after Japan’s Mitsui, one of its Gulf of Mexico drilling partners, agreed a $90 million settlement with the US government over the fatal disaster there.

Business and economics

• Financial Times: US and Mexican oil companies are to be given rights to drill in a previously disputed area of the Gulf of Mexico under a landmark deal between the two governments.
• Financial Times: Spanish bank Santander has been fined £1.5 million in the UK for selling £1.2 billion of “guaranteed” stock market-linked bonds without making it clear to consumers that they would not be fully covered for compensation if the bank failed.
• Financial Times: G4S has replaced its corporate advisers and brokers with JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup as the security group seeks to draw a line under last year’s embarrassing failure to buy ISS, the Danish cleaning company.
• The Independent: HSBC has launched a £4 billion fund to help small businesses boost exports as its latest forecasts showed the UK's trade recovery lagging well behind global rivals.
• Financial Times: The Shah Deniz consortium, which includes BP, Statoil and Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, has chosen the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline for the Italian leg of the pipeline, dropping the rival Interconnector-Turkey-Greece-Italy, or ITGI.
• The Daily Telegraph: Centrica is seeking clarification from the government on key financing and cost issues before making decisions about whether to continue its nuclear power partnership with EDF and build four new nuclear plants in Britain at an estimated cost of £20 billion.
• Financial Times: Universal Entertainment, the Japanese gaming group, had more than Y32 billion wiped off its stock market value as investors reacted to an acrimonious dispute between Kazuo Okada, its founder, and Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas-based gaming magnate.
• Financial Times: A lucrative revenue stream appeared to have ended for Inmarsat on Monday when the UK satellite operator said that LightSquared, its US partner, had failed to pay a $56.25 million instalment for use of radio spectrum in the US.
• The Independent: Britain’s Financial Services of Authority Monday ordered the suspension of trading in CPP shares after accusing the card and identity protection group of heavy-handed selling tactics, particularly when it came to describing the potential risks of identity theft.
• Financial Times: Mehmet Karamehmet, the owner of Turkcell, has to come up with $1.4 billion next month or lose its controlling stake in Turkey’s biggest mobile group.
• Financial Times: Shares in Transocean fell 5.12% to close at SFr43.57 on Monday, the biggest drop in two months, after the company said it did not plan to propose a dividend at its upcoming annual shareholder meeting.
• The Independent: Trafigura, the oil trader, said that a tanker carrying disputed Sudanese oil has received permission from an English court to deliver the contents to its destination.
• Financial Times: Apple levelled a new legal threat on Monday against Proview Shenzhen that has claimed it owns the iPad name in China, as a court in southern China ordered a large retailer to stop sales of the gadget.
• Financial Times: Antoine Frérot, chief executive of Veolia, the world’s biggest water utility by sales, is facing a boardroom coup orchestrated by his former mentor, Henri Proglio, the boss of EDF.
• Financial Times: Olympus is set to nominate a new chairman and board members chosen by Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, its main lender and largest shareholder.
• The Daily Telegraph: Kingfisher Airlines has blamed the Indian tax authorities for a crisis that has forced it to cut about 13% of its flights.
• Financial Times: TNT Express soared 60.5% to €10.18 on Monday after UPS launched a “highly attractive” takeover bid for the Dutch mail group.
• The Independent: Transport group Stagecoach said today it will invest around £60 million in nearly 400 'greener' vehicles for its bus and coach fleet.
• Financial Times: Avanti Communications is planning to become one of very few space-related companies listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange, after securing financing for the launch of its third satellite.
• The Daily Telegraph: Shares in JJB Sports jumped by 1.25 pence to 11.25 pence, valuing the company at £33 million, on Monday after the troubled sportswear retailer said its decline in sales had moderated in recent weeks.
• Financial Times: Shares in CSR rose 22% to 276.8 pence after the Cambridge-based chipmaker unveiled a share buy-back worth as much as $50 million.

Share tips, comment and bids

• Financial Times: Vista Equity Partners, a US private equity group, has made £1.2 billion offer for Misys, the banking software company which this month agreed a merger deal with Switzerland’s Temenos.
• The Daily Telegraph: Carlsberg has launched a bid to take full control of its Russian subsidiary, Baltika, for £742 million.
• Financial Times: Abraaj Capital, the biggest private equity investor in the Middle East, on Monday unveiled plans to buy Aureos Capital, which manages about $1.3 billion of assets, for an undisclosed sum.
• The Daily Telegraph: Property company Segro has agreed a deal to sell five industrial estates in Southern England for £80.2 million.
• Financial Times (Comment): Report finds even under the most optimistic scenario austerity measures risk recession so deep Greece will not be able to climb out.
• The Guardian (Comment): Lloyds may be clawing back bankers' bonuses, but for 30 years top executives have been told they are an elite of perfect beings.
• The Daily Telegraph (Comment): US proves that the brutality of hire and fire really does work.
• The Daily Telegraph (Comment): The first thing to say about Lloyds Banking Group's clawback is that it's not a clawback.
• Financial Times (The Lex Column): Wynn Resorts: it is a concentrated play on China, which was the source of almost four-fifths of profit in the last quarter. That dependence will rise shortly.
• Financial Times (The Lex Column): Bank of Ireland: shares are 99% below their €11.74 pre-crisis peak. In a sense, though, value hardly matters. Its achievement is to be still alive.
• Financial Times (The Lex Column): News Corp: the launch of a Sunday edition is not going to offset the financial and reputational cost of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.
• Financial Times (The Lex Column): Carlsberg: the Danish brewer was bruised in Russia when it bought Scottish & Newcastle’s assets in 2008, but it is going back for more.