Change the tax code not the Takeover Code to encourage long termism

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By Damian Reece, Head of Business


Published: 11:19PM GMT 08 Feb 2010

In his sights is the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers. The Code, and the
Takeover Panel which administers it, are seen by some as hampering long-term
business building and value creation, while rewarding short-term
speculation.

It’s a hottish topic for politicians too because it strikes a populist chord –
UK assets are being carried off to all points of the compass because
speculators can play the Code, making it easy for bidders to trade British
companies for a quick buck. It’s damaging to the UK economy and UK jobs,
goes the argument. At its centre is really a debate about the best way to
encourage long-termism in the UK.

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National Express to raise £360m in rights issue

Shares in National Express, the bus and rail group, fell 3 per cent today amid
concerns about whether the Cosmen family, the group’s largest shareholder,
would support a planned £360 million rights issue.

The company, which is due to relinquish control of its key East Coast main
line franchise on Friday, outlined today plans to raise £360 million to pay
down its £1.2 billion debt mountain.

It will offer seven shares for every three held by investors at a heavily
discounted price of 105p compared with last night’s closing price of 338p.

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Friends Provident poised to recommend £1.87bn bid from Resolution

By Alistair Osborne

Published: 8:20PM BST 10 Aug 2009

Barring last-minute hiccups, Friends will unveil the agreed offer alongside
today’s lacklustre half-year results in what amounts to an admission that Mr
Cowdery offers investors better prospects than the incumbent management, led
by chief executive Trevor Matthews. He will remain with the group.

The Guernsey-domiciled Resolution – a cash-shell with a secondary listing in
London – raised £600m last December as initial backing for Mr Cowdery’s
incentivised plan to acquire a string of financial services companies. His
team takes 10pc of the value created from each deal.

He made his initial approach last month, offering 0.8 new Resolution shares
for each Friends share, later upping his bid to 0.82. Resolution’s approach
was rebuffed by Friends chairman Sir Adrian Montague, who dismissed its
strategy and questioned its transparency. Friends then launched a
Pac-Man-style defence.

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Cancel that Ferrari order! Top banks axe bonuses for their executives

UBS and Goldman Sachs will not pay bonuses to their top executives for 2008, the banking giants have revealed.

UBS’s chairman and board of directors, and Goldman Sachs’ top seven executives, including its chief executive, will not receive bonuses. Read more

ING bank accepts €10bn Dutch cash injection

ING, the Dutch savings bank which has more than a million savers in the UK, is to get a €10bn capital injection from the Netherlands authorities, the latest bank to be affected by the global credit crisis.

ING is the Netherlands’ largest listed bank, with 85m customers worldwide, and is one of the world’s top 20 financial institutions. It operates under its own name in this country, and recently took control of 180,000 accounts from failed Icelandic banks Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander and Heritable Bank.

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