Sunday newspapers round-up: Anglo American, Foster's, QinetiQ ...

21st Aug 2011 16:36

London-based mining giant Anglo American is to gatecrash the £3bn takeover battle for the Australian coal miner Macarthur, a move that will put it on a collision course with Lakshmi Mittal, the steel tycoon, reports the Sunday Times. Arcelor Mittal, the world's largest steel maker ? run by Lakshmi Mittal, one of Britain's richest men ? last month teamed up with Peabody Energy, the world's biggest coal producer, to table a conditional $4.7 billion bid (£2.9 billion), but sources close to the situation suggest Anglo could team up with Citic, the investment arm of the Chinese state and Macarthur's biggest shareholder with a 22% stake, to launch a rival bid.Britain's leading companies have warned the UK's £2.5 trillion bank lending market will be drastically reduced if the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) places a strict "ring-fence" on the UK's leading institutions, the Sunday Telegraph reveals. The warning comes from the Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT) - the group which represents finance directors and treasurers from the FTSE 100 and across UK business. John Grout, the ACT's policy director, said: "If the ICB says it's going to firmly segregate wholesale banking from retail, how will that money get across the barrier?"One of the City's richest and most successful financiers, Michael Spencer, has told the Independent on Sunday that Icap, the world's biggest inter-dealer broker, would move overseas if the EU forces through plans for a Tobin tax on financial transactions. "This tax would destroy the City and cost the Exchequer billions, but it would benefit Brussels. Companies like Icap will simply move elsewhere outside the EU if Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel push ahead with this silly tax," Spencer told the Independent.The Observer predicts Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke will face intense pressure to announce new measures to calm the world's frenzied financial markets this week, as central bankers hold their annual summer retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Bernanke is due to speak on Friday, on the topic of "Near- and Long-Term Prospects for the US Economy". He used his speech at last year's gathering to pave the way for "QEII", the Fed's second round of quantitative easing, the radical policy of pumping electronically created money into the economy to avoid deflation. However, analysts warned that having already announced a two-year interest rate freeze - a move that caused markets to rise for just five days before plunging back into the red - Bernanke may have little new to say.Defence group Qinetiq is pressing the government to make sweeping reforms to the "golden share" agreement that protects the defence firm from a foreign takeover. Britain has had a veto on a takeover of Qinetiq since it was formed in 2001 after being spun out of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency to protect secret military technology, but The Sunday Times understands Leo Quinn, chief executive of Qinetiq, has been in talks with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) about relaxing the terms of the golden share for months.Forensic accountants from accountancy firm BDO have been brought in by Ofgem to scrutinise how the Big Six energy suppliers calculate their profits, according to the Sunday Telegraph. The new investigation by BDO will investigate the hedging practices, trading profits and wholesale prices paid by the companies. Foster's boss John Pollaers is to unveil a brands shake-up and marketing blitz this week as part of the Australian brewer's defence against a hostile £6bn takeover bid from Anglo-South African drinks rival SABMiller, the Observer has learnt. At Foster's financial results briefing on Tuesday, Pollaers will attack SABMiller's move as opportunistic and declare that not a single major investor in Foster's supports the bid, which is pitched at A$4.90 (£3.09) a share. "Pollaers will come out with guns blazing and accuse SAB of trying get the company on the cheap," said an Australian source.Sportswear and fashion retailer JD Sports is planning an aggressive expansion into France, which could lead to a chain of at least 100 shops, reports the Independent on Sunday. In 2009, JD bought French sportswear brand Chausport, which has 75 stores throughout France, and has now hired a property adviser to look for more sites for the chain. Nigel Keen, the group property director at JD, said: "We are targeting the main urban areas across France to build on the successful opening of three trial stores in Lille, Paris and Lyons." --jh