There is a lot of speculation about that the Treasury has set the wheels in motion to reduce their stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, both of which are partially state-owned. The staged de-privitisation will be effected through the creation of "convertible gilts", or government bonds. These bonds could then be exchanged for Lloyds or RBS shares once certain price targets are achieved. This way the government might be able to slowly reduce the taxpayers’ stake in the banks, hopefully over the next five years.

On another vein, the Treasury has warned banks that investors could be given the powers to veto top salaries, even before they are paid. Current rules that allow shareholders to vote on remuneration reports detailing pay only for the previous year, meaning that anyone that votes against bonuses in particular or large and unjustified ones in particular are for the protocol only. The revised proposals were made in Budget documents issued by the Treasury, with a more detailed and final proposal unlikely to come before the election.

Telecoms Company Vodafone are reported to be in discussions with their US counterpart Verizon Communications over the future of Verizon Wireless, which is a US mobile phone joint venture between the two companies. Apparently the discussions are based around a full merger of the two groups, which could take the form of an all-stock combination with a value of more than £120 billion.

US consumer electronics retailer Best Buy have outline details of their expansion plans for the UK. Best Buy intends to open four stores across the UK in the spring. A fifth will open in south London in the autumn.

Ofcom has ruled that UK mobile phone companies will have to cut their charges by at least a billion pounds a year. The ruling comes after a review of the cost of connecting mobile phone calls from one network to another, with the move is expected to aid smaller operators as well as consumers, to cut losses through having to pay extra to connect customers to rival networks.

Toyota announced before the weekend that they are temporarily halting production at its factories in France and the UK. The stoppage, expected to last for a total of nine days, come as a result of falling sales that the company have partly attributed to its recent recall woes.

Toyota will put production on hold at its two factories in Britain for five working days sometime in May. In early June, Toyota also plans to halt one of its two assembly lines at its Burnaston plant for a further five working days. The stoppages come after Toyota recalled 8.5 million vehicles globally over braking problems in its Prius hybrid, sticky gas pedals and pedals that can get stuck under floor mats. Toyota’s sales in the 27-nation European Union sank 20 percent in February from a year earlier, even though overall EU car sales rose 3 percent.

News has been released that the Teeside Cast Products steelmaking site has been approached by a potential buyer, with the purchase offer being the first confirmed approach since Corus CSL announced last year it was to end production. The offer has come from Rutland Partners, a London-based mid-market firm specialises in turning round underperforming companies.

Operator of the National Lottery, Camelot have announced that they are to be sold to the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) for close to £400 million pounds. A representative of OTPP has stated that managed to defeat private equity group CVC’s bid, largely because as a pension fund they promises long-term stability for the lottery. The bid from OTPP is being underwritten by the Royal Bank of Canada.

The Times and Sunday Times newspapers will start charging to access their websites in June, owner News International (NI) has announced.

Users will be required to pay £1 for a single day’s access and £2 for a week’s subscription. The move looks likely to open a new front in the printed media/internet front and will be watched closely by the industry.

At long last the sale of the Independent and Independent on Sunday newspapers to Alexander Lebedev, owner of the London Evening Standard has been completed.

The Russian billionaire purchased the loss-making paper from Irish company Independent News & Media (INM) for £1, the cost of one daily edition of the newspaper.

The deal between the two parties has been under discussion for many months.

American businessman Stan Kroenke increased his stake in the Arsenal football club. His latest shares acquisition places him within 10 shares of the threshold that forces him to make a takeover bid of the English soccer power.

Kroenke now owns 29.9 percent after acquiring seven more shares ay at a cost of $12,650 each, the Premier League club announced before the weekend. If the Denver based Kroenke passes the 30 percent mark, he will be obliged to make an offer for the remaining shares in Arsenal Holdings.

Kroenke, who first bought a 9.99 percent stake in Arsenal in 2007

The Euro has strengthened against the dollar and the pound after eurozone leaders agreed a financial aid package to help debt-laden Greece.

The leaders agreed to provide €22 billion (£20 billion) should Greece run into difficulties borrowing money to service its high debt levels.

On Friday the euro rose by more than one cent to $1.3393 before falling back slightly. The pound also declined against the euro, paring a weekly advance, as a report showed U.K. business investment had the biggest annual drop on record in the fourth quarter, fueling concern the recovery has yet to take hold.

The pound headed for a second weekly loss versus the dollar.

The pound continues to be a problematic issue in the Forex markets. It closed on Friday y on $1.4877 while the Euro fell to €1.1113.

The FTSE 100 index dropped before close on Friday, finishing down 24.63 points to 5,703.02.

The White House announced on Friday that they will require lenders to lower the mortgage payments of some unemployed workers and encourage lenders to eliminate some principal debt of homeowners who owe more than their home is worth.

President Barack Obama’s plan comes after increasing political pressure to change his strategy for helping struggling homeowners and stem the tide of rising foreclosures. This is the second major housing initiative announced in as many months.

Delinquencies on U.S. mortgages rose to nearly 14 percent in late 2009, led by a sharp increase in seriously overdue home loans held by the most credit-worthy borrowers.

Obama’s $75 billion homeowner assistance program announced last year has been widely criticized as ineffective by both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

The Dow Jones rose a little to complete a week of impressive gains closing on 10850.36. The NASDAQ dropped 2 points to 2395.41.

US economic growth has been revised down to an annualised rate of 5.6% for the fourth quarter of 2009 from 5.9%, in the US Commerce Department’s third estimate of fourth-quarter GDP.

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Tags: Alexander Lebedev, Bank, Banking, Best Buy, British Economy, Camelot, Corus, Dow Jones, Economics, Economy, Financial News, FTSE, Independent News & Media, Lloyds, Lloyds Banking Group, London Evening Standard, Money, NASDAQ, National Lottery, News International, Ofcom, RBS, Royal Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Scotland, Rutland Partners, Stan Kroenke, Stocks and shares, Sunday Times, the Times, Toyota, Treasury, UK Banks, UK Economy, UK government, UK Recession, Verizon Communications, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone

For the third consecutive month of increase, UK housing prices have increased. They are reported to have risen by as much as 1.6% in September. Housing prices in the UK continue to remain considerably lower than in September 2008, as much as 7.4 percent. However since the end of 2008, prices have grown by 1.7 percent as increased demand and reduced inventory have combined to push housing prices up, especially in the recent months. House prices increased by 2.8% in the third quarter of 2009, making for the first rise since the third quarter of 2007, and the largest percentage growth since the first quarter of the same year. The increased demand for property is believed to stems from improved affordability, and the reduction in both interest rates.

It may come to pass that the U.K.’s largest government-controlled bank, the Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) may have to surrender more than ten percent of their one million small business customers, The reason being that the European Commission has imposed a penalty on the RBS for receiving billions of pounds of state aid. Currently it is reported that the RBS, in a move designed to reduce their credit card risk portfolio are only issuing new cards to existing clients.

The Office for National Statistics has announced that U.K. manufacturing output has slumped 1.9% from the month in August whilst dropping 11.3% on a yearly basis. The wider industrial production measure fell 2.5% from July and slid 11.2% from August 2008.

The FTSE 100 rose by 2.26 percent on yesterday’s trading, or 113.65 points to close on 5137.98. The FTSE 250 was still on the rise, but at a reduced pace, closing up a further 25.12 points to close for the day on 9,226.35.

The pound made a minor recovery against the leading currencies, while continuing to hover around $1.60. The Sterling’s latest bout of weakness surrounding Sterling began after UK industrial production was shown to have slumped in August. Additional statistics released on Wednesday show that corporate profitability in the UK had deteriorated for a fifth successive quarter and is standing at its lowest level since 2001.

• Pound/US dollar 1.5958
• Pound/Euro 1.10863
• Pound/Japanese Yen 141.422
• Pound/Swiss Franc 1.64861

Europe’s largest discount airline, Ryanair Holdings Plc set aside as being of “no substance” recent reports claiming that the company is preparing to take control of Aer Lingus Group Plc through a rights issue. In another sign of the advantage that short-haul, low-cost carriers such as EasyJet hold over long-haul flag carriers during the current downturn, the company announced that it had handled more than 4.4 million passengers in September, an increase of 5.3 per cent over the corresponding month in 2008. The increase, the largest since April, was well above the 4.7 per cent rise the airline recorded in August, traditionally one of its busiest months. In any event, stock in EasyJet fell 0.3 percent, to 3.38 Euros.

According to Sir Terry Leahy, chief executive of Tesco, the worst is over for the UK economy as well as for the U.K.’s premier food retailer. Sir Terry’s revelation came after Tesco’s announced pre-tax profit for the first half of its financial year rose that had risen by 1 per cent to £1.42 billion. Sir Terry prediction is that that the UK would see a “slow and steady recovery” as the money pumped into the economy to stimulate it had to be paid back. He added that uncertainties over the financial outlook for 2010, such as public sector cuts, the proposed increase in value added tax and the threat of rising unemployment, would not be sufficient to prevent “a gradual recovery. Sir Terry also defended Tesco’s performance in the US, where its Fresh & Easy chain has reported losses of £85 million in the six months to the end of August. Shares in Tesco rose 0.4 percent, to 391.4 pence.

The management team at Matalan have reportedly held several meetings over the past few weeks to examine strategic options for the discount clothing and home-ware retailer. Subjects on the agenda included the possible sale of the company during 2010 with an asking price of around £1.5 billion pounds. If a sale was to go through, and discussions are at a very early stage, company founder John Hargreaves would be liable to realise hundreds of millions of pounds in profits from the sale. Matalan have invested significant sums of money in revamping their 200 UK stores have reported solid profits for June.

Shares in Vodafone, the World’s largest mobile phone service providers were under pressure for a second day, dropping 2 per cent to 137 pence. The share price fall could be attributed to a culmination of factors, among them, fears of a price war in India, and analyst’s predictions that AT&T was considering opening their mobile network to third-party voice applications such as Skype. A move that would put pressure on Vodafone’s Verizon Wireless division to emulate.

In the year to 30 September, the US budget deficit more than tripled to a record £877 billion ($1.4 trillion) according to US Congress estimate figures recently released. Analysts had previously predicted a slightly higher deficit but later revised their estimate, which has been attributed to increased government spending coupled with a huge drop in tax revenues. The actual deficit will be released by the Treasury Department later this month.

The Dow Jones index dropped a little on yesterday’s trading, closing on 9725.58, down 5.67 points. The NASDAQ index continued to rise, but at a slower pace, up just 6.76 points to close on 2,110.33.

The White House have announced that it was weighing policy options designed to create new jobs to ease the burden on America’s unemployed, currently numbering more than 15 million. A spokesman for the President hasted to rule out speculation that a second stimulus to provide a further boost to the US economy was on the cards. The majority of US economists believe that the country was on track to move out of recession. However the black cloud of increasing unemployment is hanging over the picture, with unemployment figures hitting 9.8 per cent, the highest rate since 1982.

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Tags: Aer Lingus Group Plc, AT&T, Banking, British Economy, British Pound, Credit Crunch, Currency, Dow Jones, EasyJet, Economy, Employment, European Commission, Financial News, Fresh & Easy, FTSE, Global Credit Crisis, House Prices, Matalan, Money, NASDAQ, Office for National Statistics, property, RBS, Recession, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Ryanair Holdings Plc, Sir Terry Leahy, Skype, Stock Markets, Stocks and shares, Tesco, The White House, Treasury Department, UK Banks, UK Economy, UK government, UK industrial production, UK Recession, Unemployment, US budget, US Congress, US economy, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone