Friday newspaper round-up: Gordon Brown, Allen Stanford, BT

19th Jun 2009 06:14

Gordon Brown has signed up to common EU rules for financial supervision but fended off attempts to give new pan-European watchdogs the power to order governments to bail out struggling banks and other bodies.Brown agreed at a summit of EU leaders in Brussels to "a single rulebook" of standards for all European financial institutions as a way of removing differences which have caused difficulties in ensuring compliance from cross-border companies, the Times reports. Texas billionaire and cricket entrepreneur Sir Allen Stanford was arrested in Virginia overnight and is expected to appear in a US court this morning to face criminal charges. Sir Allen's lawyer Dick DeGuerin said the Texan had surrendered to FBI agents parked outside his girlfriend's house in Fredericksburg, about 50 miles south of Washington, after a warrant was issued for his arrest late on Thursday evening, the Times reports.Banks made virtually no new loans to real estate companies in April and May, according to the Bank of England, revealing for the first time the extent of the funding crisis facing the industry. The Bank also said that lending to all businesses fell by its biggest amount in nearly nine years in April and that high street lenders had reported this trend had continued in May, says the Telegraph.Switzerland upped the ante in a global regulatory assault on the banking industry on Thursday as its central bank warned that Zurich was examining the forced shrinkage of banking groups such as UBS and Credit Suisse to contain the risks posed by their size. The central bank is looking at imposing constraints on the size of its biggest domestic banks unless global policymakers can come up with a new system to deal with large banks when they fail, the FT says. Glencore, the publicity-averse trading house renowned for its far-reaching influence on global commodity markets, is exploring a stock market flotation.Switzerland-based Glencore, one of the world's largest private companies, has held preliminary talks with bankers about an initial public offering as it reviews its partnership structure, the FT writes.BT named Patricia Hewitt, the former Health Secretary, as its new senior independent director yesterday. She will play a central role in rebuilding the confidence of shareholders, who have expressed concerns about the telecom group's ballooning pension fund deficit, the fate of the dividend and disastrous losses at BT's Global Services IT consultancy division, the Times reports.President Barack Obama's plans to overhaul America's financial regulatory framework have been heavily criticised amid suggestions they will end the independence of the US Federal Reserve. Politicians questioned the principle of the reforms, which will see the central bank take on more powers to regulate the banking industry, as well as perform the role of a systemic risk regulator, the Telegraph reports.PetroChina, China's biggest oil company, is in talks about making its first move into refining in Europe, discussing an investment in the Ineos refinery at Grangemouth in Scotland, according to local politicians. Ineos, a heavily-indebted private chemicals group, has been in talks with several other companies about investing in Grangemouth, the FT writes.Nearly 900 workers at the Lindsey oil refinery in north Lincolnshire were sacked last night after attempts to resolve unofficial strike action by 1,200 contract staff in a dispute over redundancies reached deadlock. The workers walked out last Thursday after 51 jobs were cut, apparently in breach of an agreement they had with Total, the company that owns the plant, not to lay off any staff. But Total claims that no fixed agreements regarding job retention were ever in place, the Independent reports. The discount homebuyers can expect when buying property at an auction has fallen to its lowest level in 15 months as confidence starts to return to the housing market. Those buying at auction in May achieved prices roughly 11 per cent lower than on the conventional market, in contrast to the 40 per cent discount common at the turn of the year, the FT reports.A company owned by one of Israel's richest men disclosed yesterday that it is in talks to buy a stake in the City of London's Broadgate office complex from British Land. Property and Building, which is controlled by Nochi Dankner, the billionaire, said in a statement to the Tel Aviv stock exchange that it was in the initial stages of buying a stake in Broadgate for £100 million. Harel, Israel's third-biggest insurance company, said separately that it was looking at investing about £45m, the Times reports.