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According to The Times, OPEC members could be forced into "drastic action" to preserve their financial stability amid the recent collapse in the oil prices. The paper says that members will cut domestic spending raid foreign capital reserves and devalue their currencies to avoid defaulting on debts.

Eurozone malaise dents car industry: Hard-pressed European consumers have applied the brakes to car purchases, which grew at their slowest pace for 12 months in November, despite a rise in the sale of luxury vehicles.

AA reports drop in member numbers as it targets big spenders: Breakdown recovery company AA’s shares slipped into reverse after it revealed a drop in the number of personal members of the business which refers to itself as the “fourth emergency service

Norwegian buyout firm creates oil service conglomerate: Hitecvision, a Norwegian private equity firm focused on the offshore oil and gas industry, launched new oil service conglomerate Global Maritime Group by merging five companies in its portfolio.

House prices rise just 0.1% as inflation cools across U.K.: U.K. house prices rose at their slowest pace for seven months in October in the latest sign of a cooling housing market.

Avoid oil services as price plummets: Shares in the oil services sector have been hammered as the price of the commodity has slumped. To many this presents a buying opportunity, but there are reasons to be cautious. The sector is now entering a period of lower oil prices. Shares in the sector have tumbled almost 30% in less than a month and are now trading at their lowest level in more than four years. The damage was caused by a profit warning from Petrofac on 24 November. More than £1 billion was wiped off the value of the oil services group after it said that profits would be more than a quarter lower than expected in 2015. Shares in the oil services sector as a whole are now at their lowest level since May 2010. The problem for companies in the sector is that their revenue streams are dependent on other firm’s spending money. As a result, the rate at which cash comes into their businesses can be very lumpy. Projects to build oil rigs or maintain existing facilities can be delayed or cancelled when the oil price falls and makes the project loss-making. Taking a long-term view of where the oil services sector is heading, it is instructive to look at the share price of Wood Group. The shares spent most of the past four years trading in a range between £6 and just above £8. Prior to that period, the best price they achieved was £5 at the end of June 2008. It seems fair to assume that the recent strong share price performance at Wood Group is based on oil at more than $100 a barrel, although the company has been boosted by the £600 million takeover of PSN in 2011. With the oil price now at lower levels, it seems fair to assume shares in the oil services sector will have further to fall. We’d avoid making purchases for now, but the pick of the bunch looks like Amec Foster Wheeler, which we’ll keep an eye on. Oil Services Questor Says ‘Avoid’.

The Russians are going: Russians have been lucrative clients for service businesses based in London ranging from estate agents to investment banks. The impact of the rouble crisis will thus be felt in Pimlico as well as St Petersburg. Russian buyers have helped pump up prices for so-called “super-prime” mansions and apartments. The typical oligarch has seen a London dwelling as both a good investment and handy bolt-hole if he falls from favour with the Kremlin. But according to one Russian expatriate: “Many wealthy Russians are only billionaires in shares. The stock market collapse means they are likely to sell their houses in the U.K..” Jonathan Hewlett of Savills, a property group with an upmarket estate agency, says this is “a strong possibility”. The price bracket he has in mind is £15 million plus. So Daily Mail readers need not worry that the value of their Sidcup bungalows will be hit. Mr Hewlett adds that disposals may be offset by an influx of flight capital in dollars that Russians wish to invest. Lombard’s rule of thumb, however, is that the weight of a bear factor in a rout is always greater than that of a countervailing bull point.

Oil threat overshadows stress tests: That is a relief. All but one of the U.K.’s big banks could have survived a crisis played out against an economic backdrop that no longer exists. Since the Bank of England devised its stress tests — and focused them on a collapse in house prices, a drop in output and a rise in interest rates — the oil price has slumped. The new danger posed by loans to energy companies is highlighted in the BoE’s own Financial Stability Report. In a prescient note, Bernstein analyst Chirantan Barua argued that Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered appear most exposed to the oil and gas sector, while noting that participation in debt origination would not translate smoothly into balance sheet risk. We have no reason to believe that Co-op Bank has lent heavily to gum-chewing Nebraska oil frackers, apart from an erstwhile lemming-like appetite for bad risks. As expected, the Co-op failed the stress tests. Its headline capital ratio nosedived from 7.2% to -2.6% under a scenario that, if it were a real-world disaster rehearsal, would require the troubled bank to be stretchered to hospital. The BoE is requiring it to cut its risk-weighted assets by 40% to less than £7.5 billion. There may not be much of Co-op Bank left to float on the stock market, if it is ever ready to take that step.

Russia: fault in our tsars: It’s like 1998, they say. No. More like 1986. Sixteen years ago the Central Bank of Russia tripled interest rates in a single day, to 150%. It was a different sort of crisis: the state itself was running out of money. Tax revenue plummeted. So did oil, from $23 to $11 a barrel. Sovereign default followed. The rouble devalued. In the carnage the state also abandoned an attempt to fully privatise its last big corporate holding, Rosneft. Quite a history. This is not being repeated in 2014. The CBR has been central-banking straight out of the textbook. The textbook is called “How to Deal With Absolutely Massive External Shocks”. The biggest has been the collapse in oil prices. That is where 1986 comes in. ‘s oversupply in oil markets, and the implosion of Opec’s cartel, repeat similar developments of that year. As the careful Owner of an oil-exporting currency, the CBR is doing the right thing: floating it. The rouble’s depreciation against the U.S. dollar protects the state’s budget (which taxes oil exports in roubles) and its $400 billion in reserves. No direct sovereign crisis this time, then. This time the crisis is in private dollar debt and the unwillingness of foreigners to fund it. Even Tuesday’s 1am Moscow-time rate rise by the CBR – 10.5% to 17% – was orthodox policy. It was the best way to prevent the rouble’s float becoming a sinking (and scaring off foreign investors) without imposing capital controls (which would also scare them off). It failed. The rouble hit 79 a dollar on Tuesday, a move to just 66 having prompted the increase. With implied volatility in the rouble this high, it would be a brave foreign investor who piled back in.

Imagination conjures vision of sales rise: Imagination Technologies, the U.K. microchip designer that counts Apple as its biggest customer, is betting on the rise of connected devices and “the internet of things” to boost its business after six months of declining revenues and a pretax loss.

Oil industry twitches ears in anticipation of potential deals: The crude price slump of the 1990s was responsible for a wave of giant mergers that created most of‘s leading western oil groups, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP and Total, in the form they are in. If the latest bout of weakness in oil lasts for any significant time, then we can expect a similar reconfiguration of the industry, if perhaps not on quite such a dramatic scale.

Crude fall poses ‘same threat as house prices’: The collapsing price of oil may be sowing the seeds for a future financial crisis, the Bank of England has warned

UK retail price index unexpectedly fell in November The retail price index unexpectedly eased by 0.20%, on a MoM basis, to a level of 257.10 in November, in the UK, compared to market expectations of a level of 257.70. In the preceding month, the retail price index had registered a level of 257.70.

At 0430GMT today, Brent crude oil one month futures contract is trading 0.92% or $0.55 lower at $59.31 per barrel ahead of the Energy Information Administration weekly oil inventory data to be released later today. Yesterday, the contract declined 1.97% or $1.20, to settle at $59.86 per barrel, falling below $60 a barrel for the first time in five years after the American Petroleum Institute reported that US crude oil stockpiles increased 1.9 million barrels last week.

Repsol to buy Canada's 5th largest oil producer * Repsol offers 56 pct premium to Talisman market value * Talisman board recommends shareholders accept offer (Recasts, adds Talisman CEO comments, updates share price) By Julien Toyer and Jose Elías Rodríguez MADRID, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Spain's Repsol has agreed to buy Talisman Energy, Canada's fifth-largest independent oil producer, for $8.3 billion as the drop in oil prices pushes energy companies to take the plunge on big M&A deals. Repsol will also take on $4.7 billion of Talisman's debt. A near halving in the oil price since June has lowered price tags on producers such as Talisman, spurring renewed interest from Repsol, which had long been searching for oil and gas assets in North America and elsewhere. But analysts said the Spanish company had paid a hefty price for the embattled Canadian company and in the long term it could have to consider a sale of its 30 percent stake in Gas Natural , a move Repsol said was not in the works.

LONDON (Alliance News) - Intercontinental Hotels Group PLC on Tuesday said it has struck a deal to buy boutique hotel operator Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants for USD430 million in cash. Kimpton manages 62 hotels in the US, with a further 16 in the pipeline. It also operates 71 hotel-based restaurants and bars, IHG said. IHG said it will focus on accelerating the growth of the Kimpton brand in the US and internationally and said Kimpton's earnings before income, taxation, depreciation and amortisation is expected to double by the end of 2017. Kimpton's EBITDA for the year to the end of December 2014 is expected to be around USD20 million, with expectations for this to rise to USD39 million by the end of 2017, it said.

Bain acquires British brick maker: U.S. private equity giant Bain Capital acquired one of Britain’s oldest and largest brick makers from Irish building products firm CRH in a deal worth £414 million

Hangover for Infinis: There is nothing like thwarted self-interest to spur City heavyweights into claiming the moral high ground. Last week, Guy Hands, tax exile and Boss of Terra Firma, the private equity group that owns 68% of waste-and-wind-farm group Infinis Energy, accused the government of bowing to noisy Tory Nimbies and their dislike of wind turbines. The government was attacking the wind industry when it should support it, he said. For City folk, that was understandable. Mr Hands might be raising money for a new renewables fund and Infinis’ shares have fallen a fifth since they were floated just 13 months ago. But then, on Monday, Terra Firma announced formally that it was flogging its remaining Infinis shares — worth now about £450 million — leaving the market wondering what world Mr Hands inhabits. Terra Firma bought Infinis for £51 million 10 years ago. Its holding is well past its private equity sell-by date. But that hardly needed spelling out, at least to stock market professionals. Now, the auction will hang over Infinis shares until the deal is done. There now seems little chance of a Christmas rally for its investors — including Terra Firma. So where is the self-interest in that? If Terra Firma is to start auctioning off its controlling stake in Infinis, it is only fair that everyone should know about it.

Price of crude tumbles as Opec stands firm despite Libya woes: Oil prices fell again after Opec vowed to keep pumping crude even if prices hit $40 a barrel, despite escalating civil war in Libya more than halving production.

At 0430GMT today, Brent crude oil one month futures contract is trading 0.72% or $0.44 lower at $60.62 per barrel ahead of the American Petroleum Institute weekly oil stockpiles data to be released later today. Yesterday, the contract declined 1.28% or $0.79, to settle at $61.06 per barrel, after UAE’s Energy Minister reiterated OPEC’s stance of not cutting its oil output even if prices declined to $40 a barrel, which increased concerns of an oversupply of oil which far exceeds demand