Friday newspaper round-up: Anglo American/Xstrata, BAE Systems, Royal Bank of Scotland

2nd Oct 2009 06:19

Anglo American, the mining giant, has applied to the Takeover Panel for a "put up or shut up" order that could block an Xstrata bid for at least six months, The Times has learnt.Sir John Parker, the chairman of Anglo, is understood to have decided that the nil-premium merger proposal made by Xstrata in June is a distraction and the company has therefore sought a ruling from the Takeover Panel.Gordon Brown is ready to leave Britain's biggest defence manufacturer, BAE Systems, to the mercy of the courts over allegations that it paid millions of pounds in bribes to win contracts, The Times has learnt. Senior Downing Street sources said last night that he was adopting a "strictly hands-off approach" to the case. It is understood that a plea from BAE for the Prime Minister to intervene ? as Tony Blair did three years ago in helping to halt a previous investigation ? has already been "firmly rebuffed" by officials.The Serious Fraud Office has not ruled out prosecuting individual BAE executives alongside the case it has pledged to bring against the arms company for alleged bribery. Investigators may still opt for plea bargain into alleged corruption. Last-minute crunch talks with between the SFO and the arms maker's lawyers collapsed on Wednesday night after the weapons maker refused to accept the offer of a plea bargain, the Telegraph adds.Royal Bank of Scotland is poised to appoint two new independent directors to its board as it considers alternative ways of strengthening its capital position and paving the way for its entry into the Government's insurance scheme for toxic assets. The part-nationalised bank, which is 70 per cent controlled by the taxpayer, is today expected to name Philip Scott, the former finance director at Aviva, the insurer, and Penny Hughes, who was head of UK and Ireland for Coca-Cola, as non-executives, the Times writes.Meanwhile, The City is to revive some of its old ways of doing business by setting up a regulatory committee to vet the appointment of directors to Britain's banks. According to people close to the process, experienced bankers such as Sir Brian Pitman, the former chief executive of Lloyds, and Sir Peter Middleton, a former Barclays chairman, have been lined up by the Financial Services Authority to serve on the committee. The FSA aims to have the new panel operating by the end of the year, the FT reports.Police have raided the offices of KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Reykjavik, seizing documents and computer data as part of an investigation into alleged criminal activity at three collapsed Icelandic banks. The targets of the raids were the firms' banking clients Kaupthing, Glitnir and Landsbanki, but the move is nevertheless likely to cause embarrassment for the two companies, both among the "big four" accountancy names in the world, the Telegraph reports.Andy Bond, the chief executive of Asda, yesterday ruled himself out of the running for the same role at Marks & Spencer, as the grocer unveiled a "significant" initiative, including webcams in its food factories, to make its business more transparent. Mr Bond said: "I'm not interested. I'm not going to M&S - end of story," The Independent reports.A US mutual fund holding 6,720 Cadbury shares has filed a legal complaint in the US alleging that the confectionery company's board breached its fiduciary duties by rejecting Kraft's £10.2bn takeover approach. Lawyers for Steward International Enhanced Value Index Fund, which invests according to biblical and Christian principles, are arguing that Cadbury's board failed to "properly consider" Kraft's indicative offer for the company, the FT reports.Half of the gas used by British families to heat their homes this winter will be imported from overseas, the highest proportion on record, as production from the North Sea continues its steep decline, National Grid said last night. In its annual Winter Outlook, on the state of Britain's energy supplies, National Grid said production of the fuel from the UK sector of the North Sea would be 6% lower this year than in 2008-09. That will leave Britain having to import 50% of its gas supplies from countries such as Norway, Qatar, Trinidad and Algeria, a sharp rise from 27% in 2007, the Times reports.Large financial institutions should face a costly combination of higher capital requirements, tougher regulation and higher insurance premiums "making it less profitable to be 'too big to fail'", Ben Bernanke told Congress on Thursday. The chairman of the Federal Reserve said there was a case for levying higher premiums on the largest interconnected companies, amplifying the risk adjustment made by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, reports the FT.The British taxpayer is facing a bill that could total £5bn after the European Court of Justice ruled yesterday that Britain has been levying illegal stamp duty charges on cross-border transactions. The judgment paves the way for British companies to reclaim charges they have paid on mergers and acquisitions in the European Union, the Independent reports.The need to overhaul Britain's ailing broadband network was laid bare yesterday as research showed it is "not ready for tomorrow" and lags behind 20 countries including Taiwan and Latvia. South Korea was named the most advanced in Cisco's global study into broadband by country. The UK was 25th with a service that just meets its citizens' current broadband needs, the Independent reports.