Tuesday newspaper round-up: Bank tax, Apple, Nicholas Levene

20th Oct 2009 06:20

The Government has backed away in the face of speculation that it will impose a windfall tax on banks to punish them for paying excessive bonuses.The move came yesterday as City lawyers warned that rushing through legislation to crack down on bonuses would be unworkable and a legal minefield. Downing Street distanced itself from a controversial one-off windfall tax, telling banks that it was up to them to ensure that they were acting appropriately, but the Conservatives have said that they may impose a one-off levy, the Times writes.Anger over bank bonuses gathered a new head of steam yesterday as the country's top regulator urged lenders to pare back their payouts and news emerged of a £5m "golden hello" for 11 traders at the state-backed Royal Bank of Scotland, the Telegraph adds.Apple shrugged off the global downturn to report the company's most profitable quarter thanks to record sales of iPhones and Macintosh computers. An updated iPhone in June and a new version of its operating system for its Mac computers in August helped the company to raise profits by nearly 50% on the same quarter a year ago. The net profit was $1.67bn (£1.01bn), or $1.82 a share, in its fourth quarter to September 26, up from $1.14bn, or $1.26 a share, in the year-ago period, the Times writes.Nicholas Levene, the financier who faces millions of pounds of legal claims from investors, has resigned from the board of Leyton Orient Football Club. The well-know City figure telephoned Barry Hearn, chairman of Leyton Orient, on Sunday evening. It was the first time Mr Levene, who was vice-chairman of the club, had been in touch since mid-August when fears about clients' investments started to engulf him, the Telegraph reports. Bob Diamond, the president of Barclays, has turned down the opportunity to try out for one of America's biggest banking jobs, after he was approached by the board of Bank of America (BoA) to replace Kenneth Lewis, its retiring chief executive. Mr Diamond, 58, was shortlisted by BoA's recruitment committee and was invited to attend an interview, a bank source said, but declined to take part, the Times reports.Ben Bernanke said on Monday that it was "extraordinarily urgent" that the US and Asia adopt policies that prevent a revival of global economic imbalances as the financial crisis ebbs. The Federal Reserve chairman warned that global imbalances - the big gaps between national saving, consumption and investment rates reflected in large trade deficits and surpluses - had helped cause the crisis and needed to be corrected, reports the FT.Fears are growing that General Motors is planning swingeing job cuts throughout its European operations if lawmakers in Brussels block its sale of GM Europe (GME) to a consortium led by Magna International. Sources close to Vauxhall dismissed as "pure speculation" claims that the proposed sale of GME - including Opel in Germany and Vauxhall in the UK - to Magna, the Canadian car parts maker, might fall though as a result of pressure from the European Commission, the Independent reports. The winding-up of Lehman Brothers in Europe, one part of the largest-ever global bankruptcy, is heading into record territory for accountancy and legal fees in the region, as well as the size of the claims made against the overseas parent company. The joint administrators, in a report to creditors, revealed that they are readying a new claim of $90bn (€60.2bn) against the US parent of the failed bank, bringing the claims by its European arm against different Lehman entities globally to $208bn. In the report, PwC revealed that in their first year working on the case they have charged £154m (€168m) in fees for work on the company's winding up, the FT reports.UK companies looking to restructure debts have had their plans thrown into doubt after the Treasury tightened up tax rules around debt buy-backs. The changes - which follow fears that the government was thought to be losing hundreds of millions of pounds of lost revenue - will force companies that buy back debt at a discount to recognise immediately any profit on the buy-back. Marcus Rea, director at Deloitte, said the number of debt buy-backs could fall significantly as a result, the FT reports.Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the US and owner of the UK's Newsquest, said advertising revenues are still skidding downwards on both sides of the Atlantic. But the group highlighted a modest slowdown in the rate of decline, and said that lay-offs and other cost-cutting had kept the company in the black over the past three months, the Independent reports.