Sunday newspaper round-up: Barclays and Blackrock mull funds merger

7th Jun 2009 09:53

Barclays is finalising a deal to merge its $1trn (£625bn) fund management arm with BlackRock of the US. Details of the transaction are still being negotiated by the two sides, but it is likely to involve Barclays taking an economic interest in the combined fund management group of as much as 20%, according to people close to the talks, the Sunday Telegraph reports.Former HBOS chief Andy Hornby in talks about Alliance Boots about taking a role at the helm of Boots, the high street retailer. Mr Hornby is among several candidates who have been in discussions in recent weeks with Stefano Pessina, the Italian billionaire who runs Alliance Boots, about becoming the group's chief executive, the Sunday Telegraph reports.The chairman of Royal Mail says he is ready to close the group's final-salary pension scheme, one of the largest of its kind in Britain, if plans to part-privatise Royal Mail fail. Donald Brydon's warning came in the same week as three large British companies - BP, Barclays and WM Morrison - made moves to reduce their future pension liabilities. Brydon said: "If we don't get this relief [part privatisation] from the government we are going to have to look at the same option as Barclays and close the pension scheme to existing members," the Sunday Times reports.The sports pay-television operator Setanta may be forced to call in administrators this week after an emergency board meeting on Saturday failed to reach a decision about the company's future. The broadcaster, which showed England's World Cup qualifying match in Kazakhstan last night, is struggling to pay its annual £200m rights bill for FA Cup, England and Premiership games, reports the Sunday Telegraph.The billionaire Barclay brothers are poised to join a fast-growing band of retailers exploiting a controversial Channel Islands tax loophole in order to sell VAT-free CDs, DVDs and video games over the internet, undercutting prices in struggling independent high street stores and depriving the Treasury of millions of pounds in lost revenues, reports the Observer.The government will have to consider running trains with fewer carriages if funding is squeezed by the recession, according to the industry regulator. The chief executive of the Office of Rail Regulation, Bill Emery, said the Department for Transport could conserve cash by running shorter trains, but warned against cutting a five-year £35bn expenditure programme for the rail network, the Observer reports.Bernie Madoff, the $60bn fraudster, ordered his London office to sell its $165m portfolio of UK gilts only a month before he confessed to the FBI that his business was a "big lie". The London directors followed his instructions, transferring the sale proceeds to Madoff's New York office. However, it is still not clear where this money went to, reports the Sunday Independent.The prime minister's newly appointed business champion, Sir Alan Sugar, is planning to lead a roadshow of bankers around the country in an effort to get them lending to small and medium-sized enterprises. In his first interview since taking up the new position, Sugar - who will be given a peerage - told The Sunday Times that getting the banks to start lending was at the "top of his agenda".Vodafone is set to end a three-year dispute with Carphone Warehouse by resurrecting a sales agreement with the mobile-phone store chain. Talks between Charles Dunstone, the Carphone boss, and Vodafone's senior management are believed to be at an advanced stage, with an announcement expected imminently, the Sunday Times reports.A Turkish billionaire is to become one of the biggest shareholders in Heritage Oil under a deal that could transform the FTSE 250 group into the biggest player in Iraqi Kurdistan. Heritage is understood to be in talks with Genel Enerji, a Turkish oil company, about an all-share merger. Genel is owned by Cukurova Group, a conglomerate that spans media to cars to shipping and is controlled by Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, Turkey's richest man, the Sunday Times reports.