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Monday newspaper round-up: Bradford & Bingley, Northern Rock, BA

Mon, 26th Oct 2009 06:25

Bradford & Bingley is to divide its £50 billion balance sheet into "good" and "bad" assets in an exercise that echoes similar plans at Northern Rock. B&B, which was broken up and partly nationalised a year ago, is looking for attractive assets that it can sell to private buyers, says the Times.The Independent adds that Northern Rock is to begin looking for new non-executive directors after EU regulators approve its split into two this week. It has also emerged that all the controversial "together" loans of up to 125 per cent of the value of the homes they were linked to will go into Northern Rock Asset Management, the so-called "bad bank", alongside those linked to the "Granite" securitisation vehicle. European regulators have told British Airways, American Airlines and Spain's Iberia that they could be forced to give up valuable take-off and landing slots if they want their long-planned transatlantic tieup to go ahead, writes the FT.Leading City fund managers have raised the stakes in the battle over bankers' pay by demanding that regulators prevent bonuses from being awarded out of profits made on the back of taxpayer support, reports the Telegraph.Lloyds Banking is negotiating a £400m acquisition of CPA Global, the patent and legal services group, underlining how the private equity arm of the partly state-owned bank now dominates the UK's shrinking buy-out market, according to the FT.FTSE 100 chief executives have received inflation-busting pay rises averaging 7.4% over the past year, almost making up for a 29% drop in their bonuses, according to a report published Monday. Incomes Data Services, the pay research group, said company chiefs' salaries were growing twice as fast as the pay of shop-floor workers, with their total remuneration falling just 1.5% despite collapsing profits, says the FT.Although the numbers will not be included in third-quarter results due to be released this week, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca are expected to reap significant financial rewards for vaccines they have been rushing to release over the last few months. Analysts expect sales of GSK's Pandemrix to hit £1bn in the fourth quarter, while its anti-viral treatment Relenza could hit £180m, writes the Telegraph.Plans by the Crown Estate to treble its revenues from offshore wind parks have angered energy companies, who say that the move could jeopardise the viability of important new projects and undermine government hopes to boost renewable energy in Britain, reports the Times.The American economy seems set officially to emerge from recession this week. Having contracted each quarter since last summer, making it the longest downturn in post-war US history, economists expect a fairly robust expansion to be recorded in the three months to the end of September, according to the Independent.Investors have dealt a humiliating blow to private equity firm BC Partners by rejecting its request for a lucrative one-year extension to its €5.9bn (£5.4bn) fund, says the Telegraph.The hotel industry may be mired in its worst trading decline in living memory amid a slump in corporate spending, but InterContinental Hotels will provide compelling evidence this week that the pipeline of new development, even at the top end, has yet to dry up. The group, which owns the Holiday Inn, Indigo and Crowne Plaza chains, is set to announce that it has signed a contract for its second luxury InterContinental-branded hotel in London, to be developed in Westminster by the Splendid Hotel Group, an existing IHG franchisee, at an estimated cost of about £100m, writes the Times.

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