Thursday newspaper round-up: Spain, Ireland, BP

2nd Dec 2010 06:07

Spain and Ireland are set to launch large-scale privatisation programmes as they fight to preserve market faith in their turnaround plans. The Spanish government is looking at auctioning stakes in its national lottery operator and airports, while Ireland will look at privatisations in its electricity and gas sectors as part of a joint European Union and IMF bail-out package agreed on Sunday, the Telegraph reports.Ireland's banks are among the most exposed to some of the other weaker eurozone nations, in spite of the industry's tiny network of foreign operations. According to analysis of the most recent Bank for International Settlements data on overseas loan exposures, Irish banks together make them the fifth-largest lender in the world to Italy, with total outstanding credit of $40.9bn, reports the FT.BP's decision to press ahead with a $2.5bn project to extract crude from Canada's oil sands triggered an angry response from investor groups yesterday. The Co-operative Asset Management (TCAM) said that it was "disappointed" with the decision to proceed with the Sunrise project in northern Alberta, in which BP holds a 50% stake, the Times reports.America's growing budget deficit is the greatest threat to the country's prosperity and security, President Obama's Debt Commission warned, as it recommended sweeping cuts in government spending and an overhaul of the tax system. The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform laid out a plan to cut the US budget deficit to 2.3% of gross domestic product by 2015 from 9% this year, reports the Telegraph.Professor Charles Goodhart, a former top official at the Bank of England, has rallied to the defence of Mervyn King after calls for his resignation over leaked comments, according to the Telegraph. The Governor must go after secret cables published by WikiLeaks showed him to be "politically biased", David Blanchflower, a former member of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee, has argued.Foreign banks were among the biggest beneficiaries of the $3,300bn in emergency credit provided by the Federal Reserve during the crisis, according to new data on the extraordinary efforts of the US authorities to save the global financial system. News that banks such as Barclays of the UK, Switzerland's UBS and Dexia of Belgium borrowed billions of dollars at favourable terms from US authorities may further anger critics already enraged about the Fed's rescue of Wall Street, the FT reports.The Financial Services Authority is poised to announce it has closed its investigation into Royal Bank of Scotland and will take no further action against any of its former directors - including chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin - despite the £45bn bailout of the Edinburgh-based bank. The City regulator appointed accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct a detailed analysis of the events that took place in the run-up to the near-collapse of the bank in October 2008, the Guardian reports.The Spanish banking group Santander has delayed the £20bn flotation of its British business until the second half of 2011. The postponement comes after the defection of Santander UK's top managers to Lloyds Banking Group, which is 41% controlled by the British government, says the Guardian.British shoppers buy more products online and spend more money than internet users in any other European country, a report suggested yesterday. The communications regulator Ofcom said that UK consumers spent an average of £1,031 between June and November last year - nearly double that spent in next-placed Germany, the Independent reports.A third of consumers plan to rush through big purchases this year to beat January's VAT hike, a survey suggests today. Around 37% said they were bringing forward the big buys before the end of December to pay VAT at 17.5% on them, rather than the new 20% rate, the Daily Mail reports.