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It’s that "I said it at the Brighton conference" season again.

September 29th, 2009 by tom | Filed under Central banks, Daily News, Debt, Exchage Rate, Money Management, Recession, Stocks and shares, The Budget, UK Banks, World Banks.

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Government ministers will use this week’s Labour party conference to claim government action helped pull the country back from the economic abyss, while their Tory counterparts will as surely use their own conference next week to blame the government for the downturn’s depth.

According to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) employers’ organisation, after the general election, public spending should be cut harder and faster than the government intends. The next government should aim to balance their books by 2015-16, which is two years earlier than the plan set out in this year’s Labour Party Budget. The feeling at the CBI is that while it was essential an incoming government laid out a “clear and credible” plan to get the budget back into balance, the organisation remains undecided whether the process of cutting spending should start next year, according to the opposition Conservative party’s proposals.

According to internal company data, Opel’s U.K. and Spanish car plants are more efficient than two of its three German factories. Figures for December show the Russelheim plant in Germany took almost 10 hours more to assemble a car than the Ellesmere Port factory in Britain and 14 hours more than in Zaragoza, Spain. These figures are likely be used by those demanding the European Commission “take a tough stand” on the sale of General Motors’s Opel unit to Magna International Inc. Job losses are expected to be heavier outside Germany under that proposal, which is being brokered by the German government.

The proposed UK government six pound telephone line tax due to be implemented by the end of 2010 has apparently raised some eyebrows in the business community. The proposal, aimed to partly fund the investment required for a new UK national broadband network. Has met with a surprising response from British business who claim that six pound per telephone line would prove insufficient and could hold back the UK broadband sector for some time to come. Government thinking is apparently that many consumers are already upset about the need to pay six pound every year, although they have no current access to broadband, and the government is trying to keep the cost per family down, but to what effect.

UK-based domestic insurance group HomeServe has sold its loss-making emergency repair services unit for £11 million. HomeServe Emergency Services (HES) was acquired by Midlands-based LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group. The division posted a loss for the first half of this year, and HomeServe was reportedly keen to sell it off, reducing its valuation by £97 million to make the sale. HES, who employ 2,400 people at offices in Norwich, Nottingham, and Beverley, is made up of three trading businesses, including HomeServe Glass and Locks, who provide and emergency glazing and locksmith service; HomeServe, Chem-Dry, who provide emergency restoration of water damage and accidental damage; and HomeServe Content Services, who have developed a software designed to assist insurance firms validate contents insurance claims.

The FTSE 100 registered its sharpest gain in three weeks on Monday, as it jumped 83.50 points to close on 5,165.70 The FTSE 250 reversed most of last week’s fall, up 108.96 points to 9169.40.

The pound continued to enjoy mixed fortunes against the major currencies.

  • • Pound/US dollar 1.5879
  • • Pound/Euro 1.10867
  • • Pound/Japanese Yen 142.4182
  • • Pound/Swiss Franc 1.64

Photocopier giant Xerox, already the world’s biggest supplier of digital printer and document management services, has unveiled a takeover deal which takes it into the fields of data management and technology outsourcing. The company is buying fellow US firm Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) in a cash and shares deal worth £4 billion.

Wall Street on Monday recorded its biggest daily gain for over a month after merger deals lifted investor confidence. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 124.17 points to 9,789.36. The NASDAQ jumped 39.82 to close on 2130.74. Last week, Wall Street suffered its biggest weekly loss since July after disappointing data on durable goods and housing sales.

Germany equities led European bourses higher on Monday aided by a particularly strong performance from the German utility sector, after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and her Free Democratic allies gained a majority in parliament on Sunday.

In a move designed to ease the impact of the global economic crisis on central and Eastern Europe, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has appealed for an increase of 50 per cent in working capital.

The multilateral bank, controlled by some 60 governments, including European Union members, the US and Japan, is asking for an extra £9 billion (€10 billion,) necessary to expand their lending capabilities as well as compensating for a sharp decline in private capital flow, especially into the cash strapped former communist countries.

The bank’s move highlights the bank’s concerns that the region’s difficulties may be forgotten as world leaders grapple with the effects of the global crisis.

The yen rose to a seven-month high versus the dollar as Japan’s new government reiterated its opposition to intervening to stem a currency’s gain and the Federal Reserve pledged to keep interest rates low. Japan’s yen advanced 1.8 percent this week to 89.64 per dollar, from 91.29 on September the 18th at one point touching 89.51 yen, the strongest level for almost nine months.

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