Friday Papers: Cameron criticises European financial tax

Top stories

• Financial Times: David Cameron reopened tensions on Thursday with Paris and Berlin, after he said the economic design of the eurozone was seriously flawed and described as “madness” plans for a European tax on financial transactions.
• Financial Times: Veteran property tycoon Vincent Tchenguiz is selling a portfolio of ground rents for £3 billion in a deal that will give the buyer control over the freeholds of 250,000 UK homes.
• The Daily Telegraph: The British Treasury will on Friday publish plans for a radical overhaul of financial regulation that will hand the Chancellor new powers to take charge in a crisis, rein in the might of the Bank of England, and provide extra protection for consumers.
• The Guardian: European Union officials are preparing to concede that eurozone taxpayers may need to make bigger sacrifices on their loans to Athens or risk a string of sovereign collapses across the continent.
• Financial Times: Regulators have proposed big changes to rules for listing companies in the UK that will see a clampdown on “back door” routes for inclusion into blue-chip indices such as the FTSE 100.
• The Independent: Airbus manufacturer EADS has finally confirmed that Tom Enders will succeed Louis Gallois as chief executive at the Franco-German group.
• Financial Times: A US judge has said that BP should have to pay for the damages of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 even if Transocean were found to have been grossly negligent in the tragedy.

Business and economics

• Financial Times: Royal Bank of Scotland has sought to defuse mounting political and public pressure in awarding chief executive Stephen Hester a bonus of just under £1 million, less than half the amount he received for 2010.
• Financial Times: AT&T reported a $6.7 billion net loss in the fourth quarter of 2011, down from net income of $1.1 billion a year earlier, in part because of the $4 billion break fee from its failed T-Mobile USA bid.
• Financial Times: Nokia posted an operating loss of €954 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with a profit of €884 million last year, as smartphone sales dropped by a third.
• The Guardian: EasyJet reported a 16.7% year-on-year rise in revenue to £763 million in the last quarter of 2011, as passenger number rose 8.1% to 12.9 million.
• Financial Times: BNP Paribas has put on the block up to $11 billion of loans to oil and gas companies, as it aims to reduce its balance sheet by about 10%, or $92 billion.
• Financial Times: Italian 10-year bond yields briefly dropped below 6% for the first time since the European Central Bank announced plans for emergency three-year loans in December to stave off a credit crunch in the eurozone.
• The Daily Telegraph: Spain's unemployment rate has jumped to nearly 24% in the fourth quarter, Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro said on Thursday.
• Financial Times: JPMorgan has admitted the bank considered pulling out of the eurozone’s most troubled periphery on economic grounds, but ultimately opted instead to stay for the long term.
• The Guardian: Coryton refinery's administrators, PricewaterhouseCoopers, said after discussions with suppliers and customers, including BP, they had started shipments of refined oil products with immediate effect, easing fears over fuel shortages.
• Daily Mail: The trustees of Kodak’s British pension scheme could launch a claim for up to £1 billion against the company’s US parent Eastman Kodak, which filed for bankruptcy last week.
• Financial Times: The Global Financial Markets Association plans to reinvent itself as a body to represent the interests of the world’s biggest banks, as regulators around the world start to target the toughest new rules at a category of so-called GSifis – global systemically important financial institutions.
• The Guardian: Nintendo now expects an annual operating loss – its first ever – of ¥45 billion (£370 million), dwarfing analysts' expectations of a ¥4.2 billion loss, as its dedicated games consoles loses ground to smart devices such as Apple's iPhone.
• The Daily Telegraph: Net income of Starbucks was $382.1 million, or 50 cents per share, for the quarter ended 1 January, up from $346.6 million, or 45 cents, the previous year.
• Financial Times: The Starbucks coffee chain generates a lower volume of sales per store in China than in the US but its Chinese stores are more profitable than those in its home market.
• The Daily Telegraph: Capital Shopping Centre's agreement to buy land from its biggest shareholder Peel Group for about £100 million is "confusing", according to City analysts.
• The Guardian: Profits at H&M were down for the fifth quarter in a row after the clothing retailer, which turns over the lion's share of its Skr109 billion (£10.4 billion) annual sales in Europe, was forced to slash prices to clear unsold winter clothing.
• The Independent: Buy-to-let mortgages specialist Paragon is still looking for new acquisition opportunities as it reported a 12% rise in profits to £20.3 million for the quarter from October to December.
• Financial Times: Carrefour is in the final stages of negotiations to replace Lars Olofsson, chief executive, with veteran French retailer Georges Plassat after months of turmoil at the world’s second-largest retailer by sales.
• The Daily Telegraph: Subway, the franchise of sandwich restaurants, said it plans to open 600 new stores across the UK and Ireland by 2015 creating about 6,000 new jobs.
• Financial Times: Misys reported adjusted operating profit of £30 million for the six months to the end of November, down 9% from the previous year; it blamed “challenging market conditions” and procrastination by customers for the decline.
• Financial Times: Calls for a break-up of Reed Elsevier have fallen on deaf ears as the Anglo-Dutch publisher has no plans to sell any of the divisions within its portfolio this year.
• Financial Times: Serco, the FTSE 100 outsourcer, is to overhaul its management structure, axing at least 500 jobs, as it adapts to tougher market conditions in the UK.
• The Guardian: Collapsed investment bank First London faces potential legal action after being accused in an administrator's report of selling its assets to related parties at a discount before going out of business.

Share tips, comment and bids

• Financial Times: US diagnostics company Illumina has moved to fend off Roche’s $5.7 billion hostile takeover bid by announcing that it will adopt a “poison pill” to protect its shareholders.
• The Independent: The restaurants giant Yum Brands has appointed accountancy firm PwC to sell its Pizza Hut UK business.
• Financial Times: Sonia Rykiel, the French family-owned fashion label, is in talks with Fung Brands, a Hong Kong-affiliated investment company, aimed at ceding control in order to finance the brand’s international expansion.
• The Independent: Kiddicare, the online baby products retailer acquired by Morrisons last year for £70 million, has bought the 10 shops exited by the electricals retailer Best Buy UK this month.
• Financial Times (Comment): Officials once spoke in riddles and did not announce their actions. A transparent Fed is likely to be Mr Bernanke’s most enduring legacy, but he may be the last of the almighty Fed chairmen.
• The Guardian (Comment): Europe's biggest problem now is youth unemployment – we should be looking at the German labour model.
• The Daily Telegraph (Comment): China has inflated its credit bubble beyond the limits of safety, and Beijing cannot continue to gain much traction with this sort of artificial stimulus.
• The Daily Telegraph (Comment): For all Angela Merkel’s tough talk, she will eventually be forced to accept the inevitable on the euro crisis.
• Financial Times (The Lex Column): Nintendo: it needs a strong showing from its handheld Wii U console, which it will launch in September. But recent history is not on the company’s side.
• Financial Times (The Lex Column): Nokia shares, at €4, are a pale shadow of the €25-plus reached five years ago, but are still priced at well over 20 times forward earnings.
• Financial Times (The Lex Column): EADS: the group needs to cut its reliance on cyclical aircraft sales – about two-thirds of the total – and boost its services and defence units.
• Financial Times (The Lex Column): Repsol/Sacyr/Pemex: the Spanish oil group has finally defused tensions between itself and two shareholders who last year ganged up to lean on Repsol’s board.
• The Independent (Investment View): Hold Standard Life