Friday Papers: EU bailout fund chief visits China to ask for help

Top stories

• The Daily Telegraph: Klaus Regling, chief executive of the European Financial Stability Facility, visits Beijing on Friday as debt-laden Europe tries to persuade China and other top emerging economies to come to its rescue.
• The Daily Telegraph: French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said it had been an error to admit Greece to the eurozone in 2001 but said he was confident the country could emerge from its debt crisis.
• Financial Times: London mayor Boris Johnson has stepped up opposition to European Union plans for a tax on financial transactions, urging Brussels to drop the proposal 'at the earliest opportunity'.
• The Guardian: Latest survey of boardroom pay finds average compensation went up by 49% to £2.7 million.
• The Daily Telegraph: The US economy recorded its fastest growth in a year last quarter; gross domestic product in the third quarter expanded at an annualised pace of 2.5%.
• Daily Mail: Paul Fisher, director of markets on Threadneedle Street and a member of the monetary policy committee, yesterday warned that Britain could dive back into recession as the crisis in the eurozone rages.
• Financial Times: Hewlett-Packard’s Meg Whitman has reversed her predecessor’s decision to spin off the group’s PC division in her first big strategic announcement as chief executive.

Business and economics

• The Independent: Spiralling oil prices and strong demand for gas after the Fukushima nuclear disaster helped Shell double its profits between July and September.
• Financial Times: Clinton Cards’ chief executive Darcy Willson-Rymer has greeted the chain’s long-suffering investors with pre-tax losses of £10.7 million at Thursday’s full-year results.
• The Guardian: The US financial watchdog is investigating whether Avon reps bribed foreign officials, the cosmetics company has disclosed.
• Financial Times: Ministers risk undermining the competitiveness of UK manufacturers by loading 50% more costs on to the electricity bills of energy-intensive users compared with Germany, a study has found.
• The Guardian: Britain is on the brink of its second recession in three years following a collapse in consumer confidence to levels last seen in 1990 and 2008.
• Financial Times: William Hill said it was on track to meet analysts’ end-of-year forecasts despite a steep drop in third-quarter earnings.
• The Guardian: Mitchells & Butlers, the embattled pub restaurant group, has announced that interim chief executive Jeremy Blood is to leave almost immediately.
• Financial Times: Barrick Gold, the world’s biggest gold miner by output, lifted third-quarter earnings by 45%, with a higher gold price more than offsetting lower production.
• The Guardian: Troubled outdoor goods specialist Blacks Leisure plans to ask investors for extra cash after first-half losses more than doubled to £16 million.
• Financial Times: Banks offering accounts that bundle up a selection of financial services for a monthly fee will have to meet a series of tougher requirements under new rules laid out by the regulator.
• Financial Times: GDF Suez unveiled a 9% rise in revenues to €65.4 billion during the first nine months of 2011.
• Financial Times: Citigroup has poached Suzanne Hubble, a senior executive from ICE Clear Europe.
• The Daily Telegraph: The fall in retail sales slowed modestly in October but a CBI survey suggested consumers were still reluctant to spend money.
• The Daily Telegraph: Beleaguered Japanese electronics giant Olympus has been deserted by the majority of its stock market analysts after the payments scandal resulted in huge swings in its share price.
• The Daily Telegraph: The Harry Potter books and Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question helped Bloomsbury Publishing grow its first half revenues 16% to £44.9 million, although pre-tax profits more than halved to £300,000.

Share tips, comment and bids

• Financial Times: Paragon, the mortgage provider hit hard by the financial crisis, hopes to accelerate its return to other forms of lending after buying a portfolio of loans from Royal Bank of Scotland.
• Financial Times: MF Global’s executives were racing to secure a sale of the company on Thursday as two rating agencies downgraded its credit to 'junk'.
• Financial Times: HSBC Holdings is seeking to sell its consumer finance unit in Brazil.
• Financial Times: Cordea Savills, the asset manager, is launching a £250 million fund to target prime residential developments in Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Hampstead.
• Financial Times: Cognetas is risking a clash with its investors after the European mid-market private equity group proposed a more generous performance fee for its ailing second fund.
• Financial Times: Investec’s takeover of Evolution Group was confirmed on Thursday after an overwhelming majority of the UK stockbroker’s shareholders voted to accept the £211 million offer.
• Financial Times (Lombard): Shell joins US frack gas exports cash dash – technology-savvy group is well-placed to benefit, but export growth will depend partly on US resource protectionism and prospects in China.
• The Independent (Economic Life): Any deal is good, for now, but catharsis is still needed – you do more to boost growth by cutting bureaucracy than you do by cutting taxes.
• The Independent (Outlook): Enough already. It's time to shake up the system used to set executive pay awards.
• The Independent (Outlook): So Europe's banks need to raise €106 billion, which was the final number to come out of the 'phew they've actually done it' crisis meeting on the continent's sovereign debt crisis.
• The Independent (share tips): AstraZeneca – hold; Clinton Cards – sell; Inchcape – buy
• The Guardian (Comment): In trying to save the euro, Germany is making demands that cannot be met.
• Daily Mail (Comment): While all eyes were glued on the euro zone along popped the US Commerce Department to remind us that the American economy is not a dead parrot just yet.
• Financial Times (Lex): State tax: surge can’t hide the pain – US state taxes are up but other sources of income are falling and costs are also increasing.
• Financial Times (Lex): Because expanding in emerging markets is slow if done organically, and expensive if by acquisitions, and because commodity costs are not under P&G’s control, cost-cutting must be the focus.
• Financial Times (Lex): The S&P 500 index and the Bloomberg world chemicals index have been in almost perfect union this year. For the leading chemical companies this link may soon break down.
• Financial Times (Lex): BBVA/Santander: testing times – given the strains on the rest of their operations, hefty investments in South America are about to be tested to the full.
• Financial Times (Lex): Shell: pumping cash – Europe’s biggest oil and gas group has become exceptionally and predictably profitable.