Monday newspaper round up: CIC, bank funding gap, NHS

28th Nov 2011 07:17

The FT leads with the news that China's sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corporation is ready to invest in infrastructure projects in the UK. This investment is being announced a few days before the Chancellor, George Osborne's, Autumn statement in which he is expected to prioritise infrastructure spending at the expense of departmental spending.Unsurprisingly, the FT's second story is the ongoing crisis inside the Eurozone. The latest iteration of this tragedy is, according to the FT, a €241bn funding gap for European banks who have been unable to borrow as much money as they needed in 2011 to roll over previous loans. One suspects this is not the last we'll hear about the agonies of Europe's banks.The Times's lead story is an accusation by an Indian vaccine maker that the National Health Service is being ripped off by the pharmaceutical giants. The Chief Executive of Serum Institute of India argues by buying from generic producers (like his own firm) the British tax payer could cut its bills by £100m a year. The Times's second story is about the fortunes of travel operator Thomas Cook which announced last week that it was coming close to breaching its debt covenants - in other words it didn't have the cash flow to keep normal operations going. Late on Friday Thomas Cook announced it had reached agreement with its bankers for a new £200m credit facility but as the Times notes, it comes at the cost of perhaps 1000 redundancies and hundreds of millions of assets being sold off. The share price fell 75% on news of the debt problems but then rose strongly towards Friday as investors priced in some kind of deal with the banks. It will be interesting to see how the market views the stock this morning.The Telegraph goes with a summary of developments in the Eurozone crisis, as the annual Europe - US summit gets underway in Washington. Perhaps more pertinent than whatever President Obama, Herman Van Rompuy and José Manuel Barroso have to say to each other is the fact the huge Swiss bank, UBS, is already "pricing in" the collapse of the single currency.The Telegraph also has a story about the mining giant Anglo American's huge new copper mine in Chile, the "Los Bronces " project. It is a fascinating tale of an engineering marvel and a legal dispute with the Chilean government. As the Times reports, Los Bronces is part of Anglo's strategy of investing in capacity to deliver "high value growth".The Daily Mail focuses on the implications of Europe's debt crisis for the UK and reports that the Treasury is increasing contingency planning for a possible break up of the Eurozone. This comes as markets ready themselves for the IMF to make a €600bn loan to Italy so that it can fund itself through 2012 and give the country's new, unelected, Prime Minister Mario Monti breathing room to implement tough austerity measures.The Mail also enters the guessing game as to what George Osborne will put into his Autumn statement on Tuesday. It, along with several other papers, reports that rail fares are likely to be capped and that a 3p rise in fuel duty scheduled for January will be delayed.