News

British Airways has admitted that its new OpenSkies subsidiary, flying from major European cities to America, is performing below budget and indefinitely postponed plans to add a fifth aircraft to its fleet, reports the Telegraph.

Lloyds TSB, one of Britain's biggest mortgage lenders, came under fire yesterday after it emerged that it was stopping borrowers switching from repayment mortgages to interest-only deals, writes the Times.

Meanwhile, the FT reports that Lloyds TSB could double its existing £1bn ($1.6bn) estimate of cost savings from its rescue of HBOS as it integrates overlapping bank branches and IT systems, analysts said on Tuesday.

Revenues at ITV are set to take a further tumble in November as advertisers scale back despite the Christmas season as consumers feel the pinch, reports the Telegraph.

The Prime Minister said yesterday that he was "determined" to see a fall in the price of petrol after BP announced a record three-month profit of £6.4 billion, writes the Times.

A battle between two gemstone companies turned more hostile when Gemfields accused Tanzanite One of corporate misconduct in the course of thwarting its takeover, says the FT.

Financial services on both sides of the Atlantic suffered further woes on Tuesday as Fidelity, Credit Suisse and Capital, the fund manager, announced job cuts, reports the Times.

Hedge funds have lost as much as €30bn (£24bn) short selling carmaker Volkswagen after the shares soared on the revelation that rival Porsche had secured 74pc of the equity and planned to seize control of its rival, reports the Telegraph.

The Financial Services Authority is assembling a team of outside advisers to deal with a possible wave of corporate crises in the insurance sector, says the Times.

The UK's pension regulator has described as "bizarre" accounting rules that have made company pension liabilities appear to shrink as turmoil grows in the world's financial markets, according to the FT.

Estate agents, banking and financial services firms and media agencies were among the hardest hit as 16,591 businesses failed in the first nine months of the year, according to information group Experian, reports the Telegraph.

The Prime Minister appealed to China and the Gulf states yesterday to pour hundreds of billions of pounds into the International Monetary Fund, as he warned that the organisation's $250bn (£160bn) reserves "may not be enough" to bail out countries hit by the global economic crisis, says the Independent.

The United States stock market surged more than 10 per cent last night, in a last-minute burst of enthusiasm before what is expected to be a deep cut in US interest rates today, says the Independent.

An Icelandic minister launched an extraordinary diplomatic attack on the British Government as she issued a direct plea to MPs to help rebuild shattered relations between the two countries, writes the Independent.