US companies have returned to large strategic deal-making, helping to boost global mergers and acquisitions activity by 26% in the first quarter. Thanks to a flurry of big deals, US M&A activity jumped 84 per cent to $267bn in the first three months of the year, compared to the same period in 2010. The US now accounts for almost half of global activity, up from about a third last year, the Financial Times reports.The new chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group was awarded a signing-on package worth up to £21 million, it was disclosed yesterday, far higher than the amount declared when he was hired in November. António Horta-Osório has been promised valuable pension and share awards to compensate him for benefits he sacrificed by defecting from Banco Santander, says the Times.Barclays Bank has become Britain's most complained about finance brand, grabbing the title from Spanish-owned Santander. According to figures issued yesterday by the Financial Services Authority, there were nearly 10,000 complaints a day about finance institutions in the last six months of 2010, with Barclays attracting 276,315 new complaints, the Independent reports.New York's mayor has said he would like Barclays to move its headquarters to the city a day after the release of an analyst note suggesting the bank should consider redomiciling. Michael Bloomberg, the city's billionaire mayor, said Barclays moving its main office to New York would be "great for us". His comments follow the publication of a report by UBS that said Barclays should consider relocating its main operations out of the UK because of the likelihood of strict new regulations on the banking sector, the Telegraph reports.Portugal insisted it could cope with looming debt repayments, after analysts warned it does not have enough money to meet its obligations. The debt-laden nation faces around €9bn (£7.9bn) in bond redemptions by June, but currently has no more than €5bn in cash, analysts at Barclays Capital estimated, according to the Telegraph.The House of Lords yesterday accused the "Big Four" accountants of complacency in their auditing of banks and called for a competition investigation into their dominance of the market. The Big Four - Deloitte, PwC, KPMG and Ernst & Young - audited all but one of Britain's top 100 companies last year and those companies change auditor on average every 48 years, the report said, according to the Independent.Bill Gates betrayed his ailing business partner and tried to deprive him of his share of the Microsoft fortune, according to a scathing memoir from Paul Allen, the company's billionaire co-founder. Allen portrays the Microsoft mogul as a sarcastic bully who tried to force his founding partner out of the firm and to cut his share in the company as he was recovering from cancer, the Guardian reports.James Murdoch has been promoted to deputy chief operating officer at News Corp and chairman and chief executive of its international operations, confirming him as the family's heir presumptive and setting the scene for a staggered handover of power at the $46bn (£29bn) media group. The move comes weeks after the group run by 80-year-old Rupert Murdoch bought Shine, a TV production company run by his daughter Elisabeth, and amid signs that his eldest son Lachlan Murdoch becoming more involved in News Corp's activities, says the Financial Times.RG
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