Tuesday Papers: Diamond to take top job at Barclays - other news

Financial Times

* Barclays will today confirm Bob Diamond, head of its fast growing investment bank, as its next chief executive; Diamond will take over from John Varley at Barclays’ annual meeting next March.

* Angela Knight, chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, has said that government’s Commission on Banking should back away from considering a break-up of the country’s most powerful lenders and focus instead on high-street competition.

* Spanish banks have raised more than $4bn in bond issues in the first five days of September alone, according to company announcements and figures from Dealogic.

* Germany’s top 10 banks will have to raise as much as €105bn of fresh capital under a global regulatory overhaul, the country’s banking industry has warned, in a last-ditch effort to change tough new rules.

* Germany’s four big power companies are to pay the Berlin government a total of €30bn to extend the phase-out of the country’s nuclear power stations by up to 12 years.

* President Barack Obama will on Monday unveil a $50bn infrastructure plan to build roads, railways and airport runways.

* Citigroup is at the centre of a dispute among analysts and accounting experts over whether it should set aside funds to cover $50bn of deferred taxes.

* Finance companies that lend to consumers and smaller businesses in the US are finding it easier to fund themselves in the wholesale credit markets.

* The UCLA Anderson School of Management is preparing to forgo public funding amid increasing uncertainty about the state’s economic health and California’s ability to pay for higher education.

* The FTSE All-World equity index is up 0.4%; The FTSE Eurofirst 300 rose 0.1%; The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo enjoyed a 2.1% advance.

* Afghanistan’s financial institutions have stepped in to stop a run on Kabul Bank, the country’s largest lender, as customers withdrew about 60% of the bank’s cash deposits after its two top executives resigned amid corruption allegations.