| | Friday 23 November 2012 THOUGHT FOR THE DAY  Not Such An Odd Couple Hello Share Shiners,
A few months ago, I discussed the rather unusual strategy of taking two similar companies and studying the progress of both to try and make a choice of which one to buy and which one to sell.
This assumed that both were worth about the same in terms of share price, if not prospects. So if one got well behind the other, it might be worth buying the laggard on a guess that it would soon catch up.
This relies on the unreliable prediction that both companies would continue in the same mode of success, as they are so similar.
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Paper Round EU summit, UBS, RBS branch sale
European leaders voiced pessimism on Friday on reaching a deal on a trillion-euro EU budget, as gruelling talks pushed into a second day with little prospect of bridging bitter divisions. The summit talks in Brussels were suspended overnight after less than an hour and a half, having already begun hours late on Thursday due to the vast differences on the need for cuts between the bloc's have and have-not nations. The negotiations were scheduled to resume at 11.00 on Friday once delegates from the 27 member nations have had time to examine new proposals on the 2014-2020 budget submitted by EU president Herman Van Rompuy. [The Telegraph]
UBS will have to pay one of the largest fines ever imposed by the UK's financial regulator for management failures that led to the Swiss bank's $2.3bn rogue trading loss, according to people familiar with the negotiations. The Financial Services Authority and UBS are finalising the details of a settlement penalty that will probably be between £20m and £50m, with a joint announcement expected as soon as next week. Switzerland's financial regulator, Finma, does not have the power to levy fines and will instead force UBS to accept strict new supervisory measures. [The Financial Times]
The former chairman of Standard Chartered could return to banking through the 316-branch division being sold by Royal Bank of Scotland. Corsair Capital, the private equity firm where Lord Davies of Abersoch is a partner and vice-chairman, has expressed interest in the business. It is unclear whether the Welsh banker, who is a former Trade Minister and conducted a government review of the number of women on company boards, would take on a direct role in running the business. Lord Davies, who this week was named chairman of Chime Communications, did not comment yesterday. [The Times]
Deloitte faced more questions over its relationship with the software firm at the eye of a storm over alleged "accounting improprieties" yesterday, as a shareholder adviser said it had repeatedly raised concerns over the fees racked up by the auditor for other work. PIRC, which advises pension funds investing £1.5trn in total, said that Autonomy had "raised a number of red flags" regarding corporate governance. Hewlett-Packard bought the Cambridge-based firm for $10.3bn (£6.5bn) last year, but the US giant wrote off $8.8bn on Tuesday, accusing its former management of inflating the value of the firm and a "wilful" effort to mislead.[The Independent]
Business Secretary Vince Cable pledged yesterday that the government would take a "greater interest" in take-overs of UK companies and also fight the City's "quick buck mentality". Endorsing Professor John Kay's independent review of UK equity markets, Cable said the coalition was also working to scrap companies' quarterly reporting that he said encouraged greater focus on short-term returns than long-term value. "Many of us feel that, in the past, our public companies and investors have focused on short-term profit at the expense of long-term value," Cable said. "The behaviour of many banks in the run-up to the financial crisis is an extreme example of this quick buck mentality, but there is a wider problem." [The Scotsman]
Communications giant Virgin Media was involved in a row over trade union recognition on Thursday after ending collective bargaining deals following a vote by employees. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) accused the firm of "stealing" trade union recognition from its staff after a referendum showed 52% in favour of the company's position. [The Guardian]
Energy firms will be allowed to triple the amount of money they add to customers' bills to pay for renewable power, nuclear and other environmental measures, under plans to be announced by the government next week. The deal over a new energy bill, struck after weeks of sometimes bitter negotiations between the coalition partners, will mean the total amount energy suppliers can add to domestic and business bills will rise from £2.35bn this year to nearly £10bn at the end of this decade. Adjusting for inflation that would be worth £7.6bn in today's prices, an increase of nearly three times. [The Guardian]
THE LATEST ON THE CRAZY BOARD The top 5 hot company threads on the Bulletin Board: Enterprise Inns Nokia Optos Sepura The Running Trading Thread
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BOOK OF THE WEEK  By Niall Ferguson
A book review by James Faulkner of WatsHot.com One could be forgiven for lifting an eyebrow at the title of Niall Ferguson's book (and television series) exploring the development of global finance - surely a more apposite title given the current climate would be The Descent of Money, or something along those lines? But the really great thing about historians is that they take a much more eclectic and measured view of present circumstances than most of us can afford by the very nature of our own professions and preoccupations. The recent G20 Summit in London demonstrated how angry many people are at their own financial plight, the apparent greed of bankers and financiers, and the great gulf between the haves, the have-nots and the 'have-yachts' as Ferguson puts it. Yet Ferguson shows us that the problems of today aren't products of the financial system itself, rather they are the products of our own tendency to lurch from irrational exuberance to excessive pessimism.
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