Monday newspaper round-up: Banks, BP, British Land

2nd Aug 2010 06:39

The new chairman of the powerful Commons Treasury Select Committee has stepped into the escalating row over loans to small business, telling ministers to stop threatening the banks.Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP for Chichester, issued the warning as the high street banks braced themselves for fresh criticism in a week when they will reveal half-year profits of £10bn. George Osborne tore into the sector at the weekend, saying that he would not tolerate banks that unnecessarily put pressure on small and medium enterprises and demanding that they lend more, the Times reports.BP will this week step up its fight against an "unconstitutional" proposal to ban it from new US offshore drilling, which the British Embassy has warned could be seen as protectionism. US lawmakers have been working for more than a month on new legislation to stop any company from winning offshore oil licences if it has contributed to the deaths of more than 10 workers in the last seven years. The proposal cleared another hurdle by passing through the House of Representatives late on Friday night, but it still has some way to go before becoming law, the Telegraph reports.Plans by BP to start drilling for oil and gas off Libya within weeks have prompted growing calls for a moratorium on deepwater operations while Mediterranean states assess the environmental impact in light of the Gulf of Mexico disaster. Stefania Prestigiacomo, Italy's environment minister, has become the first senior official within the European Union to suggest that a moratorium might be appropriate while the Mediterranean's 21 littoral states find a "common voice," the FT reports.The City of London's largest office building is to house the new European headquarters of UBS after the investment bank agreed a deal with British Land and Blackstone to remain on the Broadgate estate. UBS has finalised a deal with the owners of the 1980s financial complex in the City of London that will be announced on Monday, the FT reports.Fears of a "double-dip" global recession are gaining ground as Chinese manufacturing growth cools. Hot on the heels of last week's disappointing US GDP figures China's Federation of Logistics and Purchasing yesterday published data indicating that manufacturing growth slowed to a 17-month low in the aftermath of a government clampdown on property speculation and polluting factories, the Independent reports.Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has added his weight to warnings that the US economy may be heading for a double-dip recession. Amid worries about a slowdown in economic recovery, Greenspan said: "We're in a pause in a recovery, a modest recovery but a pause in the modest recovery feels like a quasi-recession," the Telegraph reports.One of the most highly regarded fund managers in the City has committed $25m (£16m) of clients' money to investments in Zimbabwe. Neil Woodford, who manages about £15bn for Invesco Perpetual, has bought a stake of 29.5% in Masawara, a company that will be valued at $80m when trading in the shares begins on London's Alternative Investment Market in a fortnight, the Times reports.More than one million BlackBerry users face being cut off from key services in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which claimed yesterday that the mobile devices posed a threat to national security. The two Gulf states are concerned that encrypted messages to and from BlackBerry handsets could be used by criminals and terrorist groups, the Times reports.One of the biggest owners of consumer brands has launched a business game on Facebook to overcome its relative anonymity among the public. Reckitt Benckiser, whose brands include Nurofen and Cillit Bang, hopes that the game Powerbrands will educate players on the company and its culture and help to attract the brightest graduates, the Times reports.Rolls-Royce has become one of the first companies to produce an audit of how its activities add value to the UK economy, in findings that will add impetus to the debate about the wider impact of high-value manufacturing and engineering. An analysis by the Oxford Economics consultancy found that output linked to activities by the aero-engine company last year added up to 0.56% of UK GDP - a huge amount given that its workforce accounts for only about one in 3,000 of the UK population, the FT reports.Manufacturing output will grow three times faster than the wider economy this year, but companies and consumers face the risk of being squeezed by rising prices until 2012, according to a report out today. Manufacturing output is set to grow by 3.8% this year and 3.4% next year, according to the EEF, as the weak pound and a continued rise in demand from emerging markets encourages activity, the Times reports.Employers' demand for new staff slipped back by one point in July, while salaries for recruits remained flat, the recruitment giant Reed will say today. According to the monthly Jobs Index produced by the group's reed.co.uk website, Britain's pay cheques remain 5% down, although the last three months' stability points to a gradually improving climate, the Independent reports.