Todd Stitzer, chief executive of Cadbury, has appeared to concede that a combination with Kraft makes "strategic sense". Bank of America/Merrill Lynch revealed that Mr Stitzer had told a conference organised by the investment bank that he did not expect Kraft would walk away and that his 'job is to get as much value as possible,' says the FT.Britain has questioned the viability of Magna's plan to buy Opel in a letter to European competition chief Neelie Kroes in a fresh challenge to the politically charged sale of GM's European arm. In the letter, obtained by the FT, Lord Mandelson, Britain's business secretary, said that the Canadian company's restructuring blueprint was too expensive and too punitive of productive plants, and susceptible to "political intervention". The Bank of England has summoned the City's leading economists to an unprecedented meeting in Threadneedle Street, as the pound plunges amid growing confusion over its radical Quantitative Easing (QE) policy. The Bank will host a seminar of all London's major economists next Tuesday - the first time it has invited them in en masse in recent memory - in what has been construed as a sign that it fears market participants are starting to lose faith in its efforts to pump cash into the economy, writes the Telegraph.A war of words broke out between London and Berlin yesterday as the German Finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, made an outspoken attack on the City. As world leaders meet at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Mr Steinbrück laid bare the disagreements between France and Germany on one side and the UK and US on the other about tighter regulation, according to the Independent.About 300 Credit Suisse bankers and executives stand to share an estimated SFr1.9bn ($1.85bn) in stock next spring under a performance-based retention plan instituted nearly five years ago as the bank struggled to retain staff, says the FT.Despite saying that the past 12 months were among the toughest on record for the mining industry, Marius Kloppers, the chief executive of the resources giant BHP Billiton, received a 51 per cent pay rise last year. The increase comes amid falling profits, the recession and the company's failure to pull off the takeover of rival Rio Tinto, writes the Independent.Plans to make the UK's biggest banks prepare 'living wills' so they could be dismantled more easily in a crisis could hurt their credit ratings, reports the FT.Denis O'Brien launched an eleventh-hour attempt yesterday to seize control of the publisher of The Independent from Sir Anthony O'Reilly ? on the condition that the Dublin-based company close down the loss-making London-based newspaper, according to the Times.Ernst & Young has paid a "substantial" sum to settle a long-running court case over the collapse of the electronics company Akai. The accountancy firm, one of the industry's "big four", has suspended a partner who worked on the account, says the Independent.The Federal Reserve is looking to team up with the money-market mutual fund industry as part of its strategy to ensure that its unconventional policies to stimulate the economy do not produce a bout of post-crisis inflation, writes the FT.Lloyds Banking Group yesterday pulled off the first significant mortgage securitisation deal since the advent of the credit crunch. The bank sold a £4bn package of "prime" grade home loans that were advanced by Halifax, the subsidiary that came to the company when it merged with HBOS, reports the Independent.
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