Friday newspaper round-up: IMF, Europe banks, business buddies

The head of the International Monetary Fund yesterday warned world leaders that they are running out of time to prevent another global slump and urged them to rediscover a "collective momentum" in order to head off disaster. Speaking in advance of the opening of the IMF's annual conference in Washington, Christine Lagarde repeated warnings from her officials earlier in the week that the international economy is entering a "dangerous phase", the Independent reports. The biggest US money market funds have slashed their exposure to Europe's embattled banking sector to the lowest since at least 2006, underlining the spreading nervousness about the eurozone's indebted periphery. The 10 largest US money market funds reduced their short-term lending to European banks to just $284.6bn by the end of August, or 42.1% of their total assets, Fitch Ratings said in a report, the Financial Times reports.Britain's top 50 companies are to be given unprecedented access to government ministers in an attempt to spark life into the economy. Bosses of companies, including BP and GlaxoSmithKline, will be able to telephone directly to the top of Whitehall departments in new individually tailored relationships with senior ministers who will act as their "buddies", the Times reports.David Cameron issued a desperate call for action to prevent the world economic crisis spinning out of control as financial markets plunged yesterday. In a joint letter with five other leaders, the Prime Minister declared that the G20 group of nations has not "mastered the challenges of the crisis" and that governments needed to take "decisive action to support growth, confidence, and credibility", according to the Times.Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou will reap a £72m windfall from his family's stake in easyJet after the budget airline he founded bowed to his campaign to pay dividends rather than expand its fleet. The airline's largest shareholder, with a 38% stake, has been locking horns with the easyJet board for the past three years over how to spend its profits, the Independent reports.WPP has stunned its major investors by suggesting that Sir Martin Sorrell, its long-standing chief executive, should be awarded a pay rise of as much as 50% that could take his salary to £1.5m - and push up the potential bonuses he might also receive. The advertising and marketing group, founded by Sorrell and home to names such as JWT and Ogilvy & Mather, has not increased Sorrell's £1m salary since January 2007 and is now arguing that the chief executive needs a boost in his basic pay to keep pace with his rivals, writes the Guardian.A slew of gloomy data from the UK, eurozone and China stoked fears over the state of the global economy, as billionaire investor George Soros declared America was already back in recession, the Daily Mail reports.Power group Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) has dealt a blow to Government hopes for British involvement in the construction of a new fleet of nuclear reactors by signalling it may withdraw from the project. SSE said it would review its membership of the NuGeneration consortium alongside Iberdrola of Spain and GDF Suez of France, says the Daily Express.---RG