Friday newspaper round-up: Lloyds, Threshers, bankers pay

30th Oct 2009 06:15

Lloyds CEO Eric Daniels and advisers have met key shareholders to discuss issuing £7.5bn of convertible bonds and a rights issue of £13bn, to be launched by Nov 4 at latest. The government has said it will take up its full allocation of new shares to maintain its 43.5% stake, adding about £6bn to the £17bn it has injected into Lloyds since January, writes the Financial Times.The Independent adds that Lloyds may have to pay hundreds of millions of pounds in fees to satisfy EU regulators if it manages to escape the Government's asset protection scheme.The company that owns Threshers, the 112-year-old off-licence chain, collapsed into administration last night, putting 6,500 jobs at risk. First Quench Retailing, which also owns Wine Rack and The Local chains, brought in the accountants KPMG as administrators last night, reports the Times.US financial groups with operations in London are increasingly concerned that British regulators' tough stance on pay could create a two-tier system in which UK bankers' bonuses are smaller and spread over a longer period than those of American colleagues, says the Financial Times.Oil-rich Norway raised rates a quarter point to 1.5pc on Wednesday, the first European country to move since the crisis. Governor Svein Gjedrem said asset prices have "risen sharply and probably excessively", according to the Telegraph.Concerns about the business practices of Galleon hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam and his associates were raised inside JPMorgan Chase as far back as 2001, according to an internal company document seen by the Financial Times.France Telecom, the owner of the Orange mobile phone network, is to set aside €1bn (£897m) to improve staff morale in an attempt to end a wave of suicides at the company, says the Telegraph.Japanese consumer prices continued to drop sharply in September, building further pressure for the central bank to take action to curb falling prices. Core consumer prices excluding fresh food dropped 2.3 per cent last month from a year ago, slightly lower than the record 2.4 per cent fall in August, according to data released by the Statistics Bureau on Friday, reports the Financial Times.Peter Norris was portrayed by an actor in the film Rogue Trader, but in his new role as chairman of the Virgin Group the former Barings boss may have to do his own dramatics. Sir Richard Branson has appointed Mr Norris, 54, to head the board of Virgin Group, the holding company that owns brands such as Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Rail, writes the Times.Complaints about the way banks, building societies and specialist lenders treat struggling mortgage customers have soared by 40 per cent over the past six months, figures from the chief financial watchdog showed yesterday, according to the Independent.TPG is set to complete one of private equity's most successful Asian deals on Monday when Myer, the Australian department store group, debuts in Sydney with a market value of A$2.4bn (US$2.2bn), writes the Financial Times.