Financial news

• Deutsche Bank begins talks over merger with rival Commerzbank

  10-03-2019 19:21 via theguardian.com
  Union would form Europe’s second largest bank and a rival to HSBCDeutsche Bank has begun tentative merger talks with rival Commerzbank, which would create Europe’s second biggest bank behind HSBC and fend off unwanted potential bidders such as French giant BNP Paribas.Reports in Germany’s Welt am Sonntag suggest that the banks have come under political pressure to consider a merger and avert a foreign takeover of Commerzbank, much the smaller partner in any deal. Continue readi
  
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• Back us or lose it all, Interserve chief warns shareholders

  10-03-2019 18:51 via theguardian.com
  Chairman says the government contractor stands to ‘run out of money’ on FridayThe chairman of ailing government contractor Interserve has issued a stark warning that the company will “run out of money” and collapse into administration if shareholders do not back a rescue deal that will be put to them on Friday.The debt-laden company, which has thousands of government contracts to clean hospitals and serve school meals, is at the centre of a standoff between creditors and
  
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• The ‘absurd’ planning loophole that could end up blighting your home

  10-03-2019 08:59 via theguardian.com
  New permitted-development rules designed to cut down on red tape are being exploited, causing misery for homeownersIt was by accident that Damien Flannagan discovered the new neighbour who had bought the bungalow behind his house had sought planning permission for a loft conversion with two dormer windows. The proposals would mean that the occupant could gaze across his garden and through his back windows from five metres away.To his relief, the council planning officer ruled that the windows wo
  
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• Wetherspoon’s chief punches above his weight on a no-deal Brexit

  10-03-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Tim Martin claims crashing out of the EU could be good for business, but his logic is flawedTim Martin, the Brexit-supporting founder of the JD Wetherspoon pub group, is an easy man to caricature. He’s been known to sport a mullet hairstyle, long after the brief aberration in fashion history when such experiments were indulged; he has a sense of humour that includes naming his pub chain after a former teacher who couldn’t control his class; and he speaks his mind in a manner that ine
  
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• The Tories hold the key to reversing Brexit’s decline and fall

  10-03-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Cameron never wanted a vote. Johnson wavered between Leave and Remain. Is there hope of a collective change of heart?In order to switch off from Brexit in the evenings, your correspondent has taken to re-reading his favourite novels. Yet there is no escape! At the start of Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall, we find the Oxford University Bollinger Club running riot and disrobing a fellow undergraduate, Paul Pennyfeather, who dashes across the quad stripped naked for the safety of his rooms. H
  
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• US and China must focus on striking a deal for the sake of both economies

  10-03-2019 07:59 via theguardian.com
  Worsening financial data on both sides of the Pacific should bring both sides together on tradeIn 2010 almost one in five Chinese people lived in poverty. By 2017 that figure had fallen to a little under one in 30, according to the World Bank. It’s an astonishing decline in poverty achieved with a mix of authoritarianism, competitive markets and a huge increase in corporate and state borrowing.During his state of the union speech last week to Chinese communist party officials in Beijing&rs
  
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