Monday Papers: Swiss vote for tough executive pay curbs

Top stories

• Financial Times: European executive pay has come under attack for the second time in less than a week after Swiss voters overwhelmingly backed curbs on corporate wages that snatch the power away from company boards.
• Financial Times: Statoil, Europe’s second-largest supplier of natural gas, has warned that future investment in new production is at risk because of political uncertainty over the role of gas in the continent’s power generation sector.
• The Independent: HSBC chief executive Stuart Gulliver is expected to receive a bonus of around £2 million as part of a total pay and benefits package reportedly worth between £6 million and £7 million for 2012.
• The Guardian: Ernst & Young has agreed to pay $123 million in a settlement with criminal prosecutors in the US, admitting that some of its most senior tax partners had been involved in developing, marketing and defending tax avoidance schemes between 1999 and 2004 to dodge taxes worth $2 billion faced by about 200 wealthy individuals.
• Daily Mail: Defence and aerospace giant BAE Systems has approached two City grandees, Sir Roger Carr and Sir John Rose, about becoming the group’s next chairman.
• Financial Times: Investment banks are charging asset managers up to $20,000 an hour to meet the chief executives of their corporate clients – often without the chief executives having any idea that their time is being sold.
• Financial Times: Morgan Stanley is zeroing in on three potential chief financial officer candidates amid continued speculation that Ruth Porat will leave the bank for Washington.
• Financial Times: Beny Steinmetz, the diamond mining entrepreneur and one of Israel’s richest men, is launching a $2 billion venture to buy distressed European property, marking the latest effort by a wealthy investor to cash in on the funding difficulties facing the continent’s governments and companies.
• The Daily Telegraph: Blackstone is putting its faith in the west London office market by kickstarting an £80 million scheme outside core central London at Chiswick Park.
• Financial Times: Shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway hoping for a window into the future for the $250 billion conglomerate in its chairman’s annual letter found only a familiar mix of folksy reassurance, straightforward principles and mere hints of a post-Buffett future.

Business and economics

• The Guardian: Greece was heading for a full-on collision with its international creditors on Sunday as Athens' uneasy coalition, struggling to meet the onerous terms of the country's latest bailout, ruled out layoffs in the public sector.
• The Daily Telegraph: Italy’s president Giorgio Napolitano is exploring the creation of a second technocrat government to break the political log-jam and calm markets after key parties failed to reach an accord.
• The Independent: UK firms are going bust at the slowest rate since the heady pre-credit-crunch era of 2007, credit checking company Experian said.
• Financial Times: KKR, the New York-based private equity group, is rejuvenating its team of European dealmakers as it seeks a fresh start before raising a new fund in the region for the first time since the financial crisis.
• Financial Times: Nasdaq OMX, the transatlantic exchange operator, is executing some US stock trades at an operating loss in what analysts are calling an aggressive act to regain market share.
• Daily Mail: Insurance giant Aviva is set to disappoint investors this week as it slumps £3 billion into the red for 2012 and could cut its dividend.
• Financial Times: The drive to get more women on to FTSE boards is leading to greater diversity of experience, with new entrants coming from a variety of backgrounds, research has revealed.
• Financial Times: New Look, the privately owned value fashion chain, is poised to enter China within the next year even as it prepares to refinance its more than £1 billion debt pile.

Share tips, comment and bids

• Financial Times: Datatec, the largest technology group traded on Aim, has bought the European businesses of defunct Newbury-based IT services group 2e2 for €24 million in cash.
• The Daily Telegraph: CVC, a private equity firm which co-owns Saga, is considering a £500 million tilt at McCarthy & Stone, a retirement homes developer.
• The Independent: The City of London reacted with intense scepticism last night to reports that there is an imminent bid of £1.5 billion for Arsenal from a Middle East consortium.
• The Guardian (Comment): ITV Studios was singled out for increasing revenue when it was 'internal supply - money ITV was spending on itself.
• The Guardian (Comment): Venezuela's recent devaluation has excited predictions of an economic collapse. Luckily, such wishful thinking is ill-informed.
• The Daily Telegraph (Comment): Ireland has done everything demanded by the EU’s creditor powers, and seemingly survived.
• The Daily Telegraph (Comment): Outbreak of hyperactivity at the Bank of England shows Mark Carney era is active.
• Financial Times (Lex): MBIA: Monoline bond insurer has lost a lot of value and future prospects depend on a convoluted legal battle with BofA.
• Financial Times (Lex): Economic theory can explain only so much where remuneration is concerned – power holds the key.
• Financial Times (Lex): CommonWealth Reit: activists who back their arguments with cash can give other investors a say on management performance.