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Latest Business News from Times Online

The latest business news from The Times and Sunday Times

Markets soar as the world acts to rescue banks
Stock markets soared yesterday after governments committed trillions of dollars in an unprecedented attempt to prevent the collapse of the international financial system.
President Bush poised to follow UK with $250bn seizure of bank stakes$
President Bush is today expected to unveil firm plans to use $250 billion worth of US taxpayer funds to seize stakes in nine of America$?s biggest banks as part of a move to stabilize the US banking system.
The day they dropped a bomb on the banks
It was the weekend the City watchdog finally bared its teeth. Adair Turner and Hector Sants, chairman and chief executive respectively of the Financial Services Authority, had some nasty shocks for bank chiefs as they met the Treasury to negotiate the sums they would need from the taxpayer to recapitalise their institutions.
RBS to pay price of intervention by cutting jobs
Thousands of jobs are under threat as Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) slims down its global markets and investment banking division as part of the price of the Government's £20 billion capital injection.
Need to know: TNK-BP profits double ... BMW up in China ... Rok deal
Economics
Waving goodbye to their jobs and payoffs, the men who once controlled wealth of millions
Some of the most senior figures in British banking fell on their swords yesterday as the Government set out the ground rules for a new lower-paid and more heavily regulated era.
State?s intervention swells public sector to over six million
Gordon Brown?s decision to nationalise some of Britain?s biggest high street banks will push the number of public sector employees to more than six million for the first time.
Transformers join Ocado's battle for profit
It began purely as a grocery delivery business, bringing Waitrose's selection of everything from baked beans to runner beans to your door. Now Ocado is moving into toys as it makes a play for a bigger part of the online retail market.
Gordon Brown anoints Hester and Daniels as new kings of British banking
Gordon Brown created two new kings of British banking yesterday. The man brought in to clean up the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is Stephen Hester, 48, the British Land chief executive, while Eric Daniels, of Lloyds TSB, will become the longest-serving chief executive of a British bank when Sir Fred Goodwin leaves RBS.
Costly dangers of the unclenched fiscal fist
This week's £50 billion bank recapitalisation plan - together with the nationalisation of Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley - looks set to push the Government's debt to 50 per cent of national income. This would be the highest for 30 years and well above the 40 per cent ceiling that Gordon Brown set himself when he became Chancellor.
Mitsubishi UFJ agrees £5bn rescue terms for Morgan
Japan?s biggest bank agreed last night to pour $9 billion ($£5 billion) of capital into Morgan Stanley in a deal hammered out during a series of last-minute negotiations.
Asia plans summit on global financial crisis
Asian finance ministers and central bankers may gather this weekend to hold an Asian version of the meeting that took place in Washington last Saturday and Sunday to discuss strategies for averting further financial crisis, Japanese government sources have told The Times.
TUI Travel owners consider private ownership
Shares in TUI Travel, the FTSE 100 owner of the Thomson and First Choice brands, jumped 21 per cent yesterday after TUI, the German shipping and tourism group that already has a 51 per cent stake, said that it was considering taking the company private.
Merger talk bolsters shares in GM and Ford
Shares in General Motors and Ford, both of which took a severe battering last week, surged yesterday after reports that they had held merger talks with each other and with Chrysler.
Ministers tread tricky path in banking maze
The Government's dramatic move to take big stakes in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB/HBOS will transform the landscape of British banking, turning two of the biggest financial institutions in the country into arms of the State. Or maybe not.
Follow Gordon Brown again and spend out of recession
Thank God for Gordon Brown. Like an Old Testament prophet, the Prime Minister might have been reviled and lampooned in his own country these past few months, but he is the toast of the world now.
Standard Chartered finds way to surge under its own steam
Other than its City head office and private bank in the West End, Standard Chartered barely registers on these shores. But the imploding value of its peers means that the FTSE 100 lender ? valued at £17 billion ? ranks squarely among Britain?s three biggest banks.
Market turmoil sparks gold rush to specialist funds
Turmoil in the financial markets has created a ?flight to safety? mentality among investors, who are pouring cash into low-risk assets such as gold.
How to turn yourself into a model borrower
How easy life used to be. Need to raise money? Take out a loan. Fancy a second home in the country and need a mortgage? No problem. Not any more. The global financial crisis has brought an abrupt end to the days of cheap credit.
Facing up to the debt monster
Paul and Amanda Davis have worked hard all their lives to bring up their three children, but they do admit to having succumbed to the buy-now-pay-later culture, and now find themselves with £50,000 of unsecured debt.