Saturday Papers: Berlusconi brushes off debt crisis

Top stories

• Financial Times: Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, has turned down an International Monetary Fund loan offer to his indebted country, arguing that Rome did not need one even as its borrowing costs remained at near-unsustainable levels.
• Financial Times: Even though George Papandreou has survived a vote of confidence, his future as Greek prime minister seems likely to be shortlived.
• The Independent: Royal Bank of Scotland took a loss of £142 million on its Greek exposure for the three months to the end of September.
• Financial Times: Time Warner has made an approach worth about €1bn for Endemol, the indebted television production group.
• The Daily Telegraph: European markets fell as the G20 summit ended with the debt crisis deal unfinished and Italy's borrowing costs at record highs.
• The Daily Telegraph: Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC are on a list of 29 banks - unveiled by the Financial Stability Board, an arm of the Bank for International Settlements - deemed to be so important to the global financial system they need better protection against collapse.
• The Daily Telegraph: Mining giant Anglo American is taking control of De Beers, the world's biggest diamond producer, through a deal to buy the Oppenheimer family's stake for $5.1 billion.

Business and economics

• The Daily Telegraph: Jon Corzine, MF Global chief who oversaw the 'shocking' downfall of the futures broker, has stepped down.
• Financial Times: Accounts containing $659 million belonging to customers of MF Global have turned up at JPMorgan Chase, the failed broker-dealer’s custody bank.
• Financial Times: Ben Verwaayen, chief executive of Alcatel-Lucent, has abandoned profit targets for the telecoms equipment maker because of the gloomy European economy.
• The Independent: The eurozone service sector is shrinking at its fastest rate in two-and-a- half years, according to the latest Markit survey.
• Financial Times: Moody’s downgraded the sovereign credit rating of Cyprus by two notches on Friday saying that the country’s banking system will require state support given its exposure to Greek government debt and retail loans.
• The Independent: A total of 134,944 new cars were registered in October - a 2.6% rise on the same month in 2010, according to official figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
• Financial Times: Marc Bolland’s £600 million store revamp plan at Marks and Spencer is set to come under fresh scrutiny next week, with the group expected to reveal its first fall in profit for two years.
• Financial Times: German industrial orders plunged by 4.3% in September.
• Financial Times: Ireland slashed its economic growth forecasts on Friday and announced plans to implement €12.4 billion in austerity measures over the next four years to reduce its budget deficit.
• Financial Times: The US economy added 80,000 jobs in October.
• Financial Times: Smith & Nephew will make more of its artificial hips and knees in low-cost countries such as China to reduce a cost burden.
• Financial Times: International Airlines Group has reached a provisional deal to buy Lufthansa’s loss-making subsidiary, BMI British Midland, beating Virgin Atlantic.
• Financial Times: The S&P GSCI, the most widely tracked commodity index, will increase the weighting of Brent crude next year at the expense of rival West Texas Intermediate.
• Financial Times: KKR reported an economic net loss of $592 million for its third quarter.
• Financial times: CME Group and McGraw-Hill have struck a deal to unite their index businesses in a joint venture that would bring together the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 index in the same company.
• The Guardian: The emergency repairs group HomeServe faces compensation claims from customers after a whistleblower told the Financial Services Authority that it had ignored their complaints.
• The Guardian: Engineering and technology group Smiths faces a showdown with shareholders over a £200,000 payment handed to its chief executive, Philip Bowman.

Share tips, comment and bids

• Financial Times: Yahoo has edged closer towards a potential sale of all or part of the company, entering confidential talks with a number of private equity firms and others.
• The Daily Telegraph: Virgin Atlantic will try to break up International Airlines Group's £200m to £300m bid for BMI, claiming a takeover would be "disastrous for consumer choice and competition".
• Financial Times: ENRC postpones vote on transaction to acquire shares in Kazakh coalminer Shubarkol as shareholders show concern over volatile markets.
• The Daily Telegraph: Groupon shares surged more than 50pc on their debut in New York, in the biggest flotation by a US internet company since Google.
• Financial Times: The Co-operative group has announced plans to bid for 632 branches that Lloyds Banking Group must offload to meet European state aid rules.
• Financial Times: Ceramic Fuel Cells said it had raised £3.8 million through a placing and subscription at 7p a share on Friday as the loss-making company tries to lower manufacturing costs.
• Financial Times: PepsiCo said on Friday that it was selling its Chinese bottling operations to Tingyi Holding, one of China’s biggest beverage companies.
• Financial Times: General Motors has threatened to block a proposed sale of Saab, the struggling Swedish carmaker, to two Chinese companies because of the risk that GM technology could be transferred from its former subsidiary.
• The Daily Telegraph: Ananda Krishnan, the second richest man in south east Asia, has acquired St John's Woods Barracks for £250 million with a view to creating a prime residential development.
• The Independent (Comment): The Federal Reserve made no tweaks to monetary policy this week, but recent speeches by Federal Open Market Committee members suggest they are homing in on the US housing market as the one place they might still have leverage to boost the sluggish economic recovery.
• The Independent (Comment): The drive to make the big calls first can prove dangerous in ratings firms.
• The Independent (Comment): The 50% pop in the Groupon share price in the first hours of trading yesterday reflects the fact that barely five per cent of the company has been floated more than it signals enthusiasm for the fundamentals of this business.
• The Guardian (Comment): Bilateral investment treaties were designed to protect European investments abroad. But now they've come back to bite Europe.
• The Guardian (Comment): Thanks in part to Bank of America's misstep with debit card charging, and in part to anti-bank sentiment focused by Occupy Wall Street, credit unions are growing in profile and popularity.
• Daily Mail (Share tip): TomCo is an interesting play on what could be emerging oil territory. But it is not for widows and orphans.
• Daily Mail (Comment): News that the FTSE Group is considering raising the hurdle for companies to qualify for a listing in its share indexes passed by this week with relatively little attention.
• Financial Times (Lex): Groupon: share price is off the wall - trying to forecast all those variables is doubly hard given that the industry is not yet half a decade old.
• Financial Times (Lex): The group of 12 members of Congress formed as part of August’s debt ceiling deal – half from each party and half from each chamber – is starting to spook Washington.
• Financial times (Lex): Praise for thinking big - Groupon, Jon Corzine and George Papandreou were all roundly criticised this week whereas in fact they arguably deserve some respect.