Saturday Papers: Cyprus runs out of bailout options

Top stories

• Financial Times: The chances of Cyprus finding a way out of an EU-backed plan to seize €5.8 billion from Cypriot bank accounts to unlock a €10 billion rescue appeared at an end on Friday as bailout lenders rejected another counteroffer from Nicosia and the country’s finance minister returned from Moscow empty-handed.
• The Daily Telegraph: Large depositors face heavy losses and the Central Bank of Cyprus will be given new powers to shut down struggling banks under a last-ditch plan to prevent the island's exit from the euro.
• The Guardian: After a day of high drama, Cyprus's parliament approved legislation on Friday night to restructure its banking sector and create a national solidarity fund that could save it from crashing out of the eurozone.
• Financial Times: Fitch has warned it could strip the UK of its triple A rating next month, just days after George Osborne, the chancellor, admitted the recovery would be slower and borrowing higher than had been thought.
• The Independent: The Losses have deepened at royal tailor Gieves & Hawkes as its new Chinese owner tries to turn around the business.
• Financial Times: The UK’s Serious Fraud Office is considering a civil settlement with Rolls-Royce that would halt a probe into alleged bribery in Indonesia, China and other overseas markets.

Business and economics

• Financial Times: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati tendered his resignation on Friday night, throwing the country into its deepest political crisis since unrest broke out in neighbouring Syria two years ago.
• Financial Times: US aerospace giant Boeing is to cut between 2,000 to 2,300 jobs by the end of the year as it winds down development of its 787 and 747 aircraft.
• Financial Times: Ministers are planning measures that could increase the number of aircraft flying in and out of airports by encouraging airlines to buy quieter jets.
• The Guardian: British wholesale gas prices hit a record high on Friday after the failure of a vital import pipeline demonstrated the vulnerability of the nation's energy supply to external shocks.
• Financial Times: Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, the main US telecoms regulator, confirmed on Friday that he will step down soon.
• The Independent: UK employers made record payments into staff final salary pension schemes in the past year, according to the Office for National Statistics.
• The Daily Telegraph: Increasing numbers of schools in the UK are following their counterparts in the US by holding end-of-year proms, boosting sales and profits for men's formalwear retailer Moss Bros.
• Financial Times: Apple has temporarily shut down a password reset system after discovering a security flaw that potentially allowed malicious users to access other people’s Apple accounts.
• Financial Times: Tiffany & Co reported better than expected fourth-quarter earnings on Friday, beating analysts’ estimates, after strong consumer demand from China and the Asia-Pacific region fuelled its overall sales growth.
• Financial Times: Cengage, the US educational publisher acquired by Apax and OMERS Capital at the peak of the 2007 leveraged buyout market, has appointed restructuring advisers as deadlines loom for payments on its $5.3 billion gross debt load.
• Financial Times: HMV could emerge from bankruptcy as soon as this weekend as Hilco, the retail restructuring group which owns the entertainment retailer’s debt, ramps up discussions to purchase the record store.
• Financial Times: Royal Dutch Shell said David Lawrence, in charge of Alaskan campaign, is quitting less than a month after Anglo-Dutch major abandoned drilling plans.
• The Guardian: Mulberry shares have plunged by nearly a fifth after the fashion and handbags business issued a third profit warning in a year, blaming a fall in profits on lower spending by tourists in London after Christmas.
• Financial Times: Iceland has charged the last of the former chief executives of the island’s three big banks with crimes related to the collapse of its financial system in 2008.
• Financial Times: Sales of junk bonds in the US debt markets jumped to their highest level in 2013 this week even as renewed worries over the outlook for the eurozone hurt demand for riskier assets.
• Financial Times: Gold prices rose above $1,600 a troy ounce as worries about the Cyprus banking bailout reignited gold’s haven appeal and the yellow metal posted its biggest weekly gain in two months.
• Financial Times: The Hinduja family has knocked Lakshmi Mittal, the steel billionaire, from the top of the list of Britain’s richest Asians.
• Financial Times: Brady Dougan, chief executive of Credit Suisse, received SFr7.8 million ($8.3m) in 2012, up from SFr5.8 million a year earlier, the bank said on Friday – even though the bank’s net profit fell.
• The Daily Telegraph: Tullow Oil has been forced to apologise to the president of Uganda for embarrassment caused by alleged smear tactics disclosed in court during its current tax litigation against Heritage Oil.
• Financial Times: The improving fortunes of Phoenix were underscored on Friday when the consolidator of life assurance funds unveiled a 19% increase in its chief executive’s pay deal, along with an increase in its cash generation targets.
• The Daily Telegraph: Wine merchant, Berry Bros & Rudd, has given its stamp approval to Chinese wines, becoming the first major British retailer to give tipples from the country a permanent place on its shelves.
• Daily Mail: Last month Centrica, owner of Britain’s biggest gas supplier with 16million customers, decided in its wisdom that shareholders could not wait for new nuclear and pulled out of plans to build a fleet of plants starting at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
• Financial Times: HomeServe, which insures people against broken boilers and burst pipes, has issued a profits warning.
• Financial Times: CPP Group crashed 69% this week on fears it would run out of cash.

Share tips, comment and bids

• Financial Times: Schroders and Cazenove Capital, two of London’s oldest names, are in talks to merge in a sign of the much talked of consolidation of the asset management sector.
• Financial Times: John Tiner, the former head of the Financial Services Authority, is to front a bid to buy the 316 branches being sold by Royal Bank of Scotland which it has to sell.
• Financial Times: Shares in Bankia, the lender at the heart of Spain’s financial crisis, will have their nominal value slashed to €0.01 as part of a final €15.5 billion capital injection that will effectively wipe out hundreds of thousands of retail investors.
• The Guardian: Barclays has accidentally bought a £600 million stake in a Dutch cable TV business after the bank botched the sale of private equity shareholdings in the company.
• Financial Times: West Ham United will be the main tenants of the Olympic Stadium from 2016 after Boris Johnson, the London mayor, announced the completion of “the deal they said would never be done”.
• Financial Times: Investors in BP have welcomed the company’s $8 billion share buyback.
• Financial Times: Private equity veteran Dominique Senequier, the charismatic chief of Axa’s buyout fund unit, and her team are leading a bid to buy a majority stake in the business, in a deal valuing one of Europe’s largest private equity investors at €510 million, including debt.
• Financial Times: Songbird Estates is planning to build many more residential units, highlighting the growing attraction of the UK capital’s housing market.
• Financial Times (Lex): Bang & Olufsen: the Danish audio and visual electronics group is finding it difficult persuading customers its TVs and sound systems are much better for the price.
• Financial Times (Lex): BlackBerry: in quarters to come, the shares are likely to trade on fundamentals – on the unit, revenue and margin guidance it provides, and on its ability to meet it.
• The Daily Telegraph (Comment): If capital controls are introduced in Cyprus, it is the end of the single currency in all but name.