Henderson calls for 'reinvented' GM GM is to close more car plants, lay off more workers and speed up consolidation of dealers in response to the US government's demand for faster restructuring, its new chief executive said Tuesday. Just days after taking over from ousted chief Rick Wagoner, Fritz Henderson said there was a need to "reinvent GM" within 2009. He again raised the prospect of bankruptcy filing if GM cannot secure agreement with the auto workers union and its bondholders by June 1. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54277/henderson-calls-for-
| Unusual bankruptcy in store for GM The US government is seeking to ease GM into what it calls a "controlled" bankruptcy, somewhere between a prepackaged bankruptcy and court chaos, by persuading at least some creditors to agree to a plan that would cleave the company into two, reports the NYT. Instead of signing on every creditor as is typically required in prepackaged deals, officials are using as leverage the promise of taxpayer financing. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54276/unusual-bankruptcy-i
| Barclays in talks with CVC on iShares Barclays has entered exclusive negotiations with UK buyout group CVC Capital Partners to sell the exchange traded funds business of its iShares subsidiary for about £3bn. The deal excludes iShares securities lending arm. CVC, which last year raised an €11bn ($14.6bn) fund, beat bids by two rival consortia. The deal would be 60-70% financed by a loan from Barclays, which will also receive warrants worth 20% of the equity in the buy-out. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54275/barclays-in-talks-wi
| Merrill's $3.6bn bonuses under fire A senior Democratic congressman has demanded that the Treasury and Federal Reserve disclose what they knew about $3.6bn in bonuses Merrill Lynch paid out last year, days before its government-brokered take-over by Bank of America. Dennis Kucinich, chairman of an investigative House subcommittee, said the Merrill pay-outs were a bigger scandal than the $165m AIG bonuses, which triggered a backlash when they came to light this month. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54274/merrills-36bn-bonuse
| Google poised for VC launch Google on Tuesday moved to extend its already outsized influence over Silicon Valley with plans to join the top venture capital firms that dominate the region's thriving start-up business. Though it planned to invest just $100m in its first year, Google's new financing arm, Google Ventures, announced Tuesday, would steadily expand its VC investment strategy, said the new group's managing partners, Bill Maris and Rich Miner. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54273/google-poised-for-vc
| Seven bidders circle Satyam The caretaker board of scandal-hit Satyam Computer Services, India's fourth-largest computer group, expects to sell the company by mid-April in a highly unusual transaction. Bidders are being warned there are no reliable financial accounts nor assessments of the potential liability from shareholder suits. Despite the doubt, Satyam's offer to sell a 51% stake has drawn seven bidders, including Indian companies Larsen & Toubro and Tech Mahindra. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54272/seven-bidders-circle
| Japan outlines new stimulus plan Japan's prime minister Taro Aso on Tuesday instructed his ministers to compile a new economic stimulus package "as soon as possible before mid-April" in addition to a longer-term programme for growth. Aso failed to indicate how much more spending the new measures would entail, saying only that the cost of the package would depend on the details, but with the new package, Japan's fiscal spending is likely to easily exceed the 2% of GDP recommended by the IMF. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54278/japan-outlines-new-s
| Japan's 'tankan' confidence slides Japan's slide into its worst postwar recession drove manufacturer confidence to a record low and prompted executives to signal more spending and job cuts, according to Japan's quarterly 'tankan' survey issued Wednesday, reports Bloomberg. The Bank of Japan's Tankan index of sentiment among large makers of cars, electronics and other goods slid more than forecast to minus-58 in March from minus-24 in December, the lowest since the survey began in 1974. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54271/japans-tankan-confid
| Brussels weighs WestLB decision The European Commission is aiming to take a decision on restructuring plans at WestLB, the ailing German regional bank, before the summer, antitrust officials said Tuesday. Last week, the bank's owners accepted that attempts to engineer a merger of WestLB with other players in Germany's state-owned Landesbanken sector had failed, and said they would sell the bank through an auction. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54270/brussels-weighs-west
| Santander sells Cepsa stake to Ipic Santander, Spain's biggest bank, on Tuesday agreed to sell its 32.5% stake in oil refiner Cepsa to the International Petroleum Investment Company (Ipic) of Abu Dhabi for about €2.8bn ($3.8bn). Unión Fenosa, the Spanish electricity group, will sell its 5% stake in Cepsa as part of the same deal. Ipic will pay €3.3bn in total to lift its current 9.5% stake to about 47%, making it the second biggest shareholder after Total of France. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54269/santander-sells-ceps
| Court restricts voting in Fortis sale Fortis Bank's proposed sale to BNP Paribas faced renewed uncertainty on Tuesday after a Belgian court restricted the pool of shareholders entitled to vote on the sale to a faction that rejected a similar deal in February. The ruling was dismissed as "a joke" by Karel De Boeck, the chief executive of Fortis Holding, the Belgian bank's parent company that on Tuesday unveiled a €28bn ($37bn) loss for 2008. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54268/court-restricts-voti
| Solvay bid talk boosts drugs stocks Belgium's Solvay was in focus on Tuesday amid talk that a large European drugmaker was eyeing a possible bid for the chemicals and pharmaceuticals group. One suggestion was that a larger peer might try to prise away Solvay's drug business. Any deal would hinge on Solvac, a holding company which owns 30% of Solvay's shares and mostly acts on behalf of relatives of Ernest Solvay, the company's founder. It is thought that Solvac would oppose any takeover. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54267/solvay-bid-talk-boos
| Macquarie sues rebels over toll road Macquarie Group has moved to protect its financial exposure to BrisConnections, an A$4.8bn ($3.3bn) Queensland toll road project whose partly-paid shares have fallen by 99% since their catastrophic market debut last year. The Australian investment bank – which was BrisConnections' adviser, sponsor and joint underwriter for A$1.17bn of equity – is taking legal action to compel rebel shareholders to meet "contractual obligations" to pay funds owed to the company by April 29. See FT Alphaville's take here. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54266/macquarie-sues-rebel
| Myners fights calls for resignation In Categories: People Posted at 04:59 by Gwen Robinson Lord Myners, the UK's City minister, was fighting opposition calls for his resignation on Tuesday night over his account of how a £700,000 annual pension was awarded to Sir Fred Goodwin, former RBS chief executive. The calls came after Sir Tom McKillop, former RBS chairman, gave his version of events in a letter to the Treasury select committee aimed at rebutting what he called the minister's "unfair and unjustified" allegations about the award of the £16m pension pot. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54265/myners-fights-calls-
| Goldman's partners leave after fund losses Two Goldman Sachs partners who helped lead Wall Street's so-called quantitative investment wave have left the firm after large losses at their marquee fund, known as Global Alpha, during the global credit crisis. Goldman told clients on Tuesday that Mark Carhart and Ray Iwanowski, managing directors and co-heads of its quantitative investment strategy team, had left the bank along with another team member. See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54264/goldmans-partners-le
| Overnight markets: Up Asian stocks gained on Wednesday, led by automakers and commodity producers, on speculation the US will let carmakers GM and Chrysler fail, and after raw- material prices rose. Futures on the S&P500 index slumped 1% following the gauge's 1.3% rally on Tuesday, as news of the US government's plans for the automakers emerged.
Asian markets (Wed)
03:50 BST
Nikkei up 242.15 (2.99%) at 8,352
Topix up 22.09 (2.91%) at 795
Hang Seng up 54.95 (0.40%) at 13,631 US markets (Tues)
DJIA up 86.90 (1.16%) at 7,608.92
Nasdaq up 26.79 (1.78%) at 1,528.59
S&P500 up 10.34 (1.31%) at 797.87 European markets (Tues)
FTSE100 up 163.23 (4.34%) at 3,926
Eurofirst 300 up 24.59 (3.47%) at 734 Currencies
02:00 BST
€/$ 1.3218 (1.3263)
$/¥ 98.74 (97.73)
£/$ 1.43070 (1.4261) Commodities (updated)
01:40 BST
Brent Crude (ICE) down $0.98 at $48.25
Light Crude (Nymex) down $1.16 at $48.50
100 Oz Gold (Comex) down $2.20 at $922.80
Copper (Comex) down $0.45 at $184.00 10-year government bond yields (%)
US 2.73 (2.73)
UK 2.68 (3.16)
Eurozone 2.99 (2.98)
Japan 1.34 (1.33) Sources: FT, Bloomberg
See this article online.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/01/54219/overnight-markets-up
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