Rolling business and financial news through the day - including new growth figures for the US economy this afternoon
Latest: Andy Haldane on inequality
Christine Lagarde: African poverty still unacceptably high
IMF chief also demands more education for girls
12.57pm BST
Philanthropist and currency speculator George Soros has urged the European Union to help calm the Ukraine crisis and stimulate its economy, by giving firms "political risk" insurance.
Soros writes that the move would encourage businesses to invest in Ukraine despite the uncertainty created since relations with Russia collapsed.
Faced with high premiums, most businesses would simply opt to wait on the sidelines until the storm passed. That is why the governments concerned must take over the reinsurance function and use their agencies only to administer the insurance policies.
They could guarantee the losses in the same way as they underwrite the World Bank: each government would provide a modest pro-rata capital infusion and commit the rest in the form of callable capital that would be available if and when losses are actually paid out.
How the EU can save Ukraine and itself | George Soros http://t.co/LnodTg0b0i
12.21pm BST
US fund management firm Marcato Capital Management has put out a statement urging InterContinental Hotels to engage with the mystery US rival that is reportedly keen on taking it over.
Marcato's Mick McGuire says:
Regardless of the veracity of these reports, we believe that a combination with a larger hotel operator would have compelling strategic and financial merit and represents a unique opportunity to reshape the global hospitality industry.
11.59am BST
A protest is underway outside the Greek finance ministry in Athens today, led by the cleaning staff who lost their jobs in last year's austerity cuts.
They are demanding that the government complies with a court order and restores their jobs.
11.39am BST
Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's executive director for Financial Stability, has warned that the current shareholder model - where companies put the interests of their investors over other considerations - may be driving inequality, by encouraging firms to be too short-term.
To some extent, this matches the stylised facts on rising inequality rising executive and shareholder compensation and faltering real wage growth. The shareholder model may, ironically, have contributed to unfair shares.
Company Law in a number of countries, such as the UK, gives primacy to the interests of shareholders when defining the objectives of a company and its decision-making. The objectives and rights of a broader set of stakeholders, including workers, suppliers and wider society, tend to be secondary....
A set of corporate incentives which had as its fulcrum long-term company value and which more fully reflected the interests of a wider set of stakeholders might help rebalance the scales for example, towards investing rather than distributing.
They took up the baton for the 99% in 2011. At least at first, Occupy were treated with all of the seriousness of a local student protest. But rather remarkably Occupy became a global outfit, albeit a rather loosely-fitting one. Occupy touched a moral nerve among the many. The 1%ers in Davos had inequality as their main theme this year.
Enough has already been said and written about a book bought by many, read by few and understood by even fewer.
I am guilty on all three charges. I suspect never, in the field of human endeavour, has so simple a line chart done so much to fuel the debate among so many, not just in the salons of Paris but in the Starbucks of London and New York.
11.10am BST
There's a mix of reaction to today's data on the Help to Buy scheme (see here) - some analysts reckon the data shows the mortgage guarantee scheme is having little impact; others argue the opposite.
On the face of it, Help to Buy (HTB) is doing very little. 7,313 mortgages were completed in the first six months of the governments mortgage guarantee scheme, equivalent to 1.3% of all mortgage completions.
The scheme was introduced in October and provides a government guarantee of 15% of the property value, making it easier for a mortgagor with just a 5% deposit to get a mortgage. Despite the apparently low take-up, this scheme is far from trivial. The indirect effects are much more important. Like an iceberg, the part visible above water grossly understates its true size. We expect the BoE to recommend watering down the scheme in its annual review in September.
The policy appears to be reaching the geographical parts of the market where recovery has been weakest, while accounting for only a small proportion of business in those areas where the market is more active.
On the basis of these figures, the scheme appears to be successfully reaching its target group of creditworthy borrowers who would otherwise be unable to buy until they had accumulated a more significant deposit. Lenders are always mindful of what their customers can afford.
Since October the Help to Buy mortgage scheme has supported 7,313 mortgages. Pretty small in context of 100k+ mortgage approvals a month.
With @JessicaLeeMP to see how Help to Buy has helped nearly 28,000 people buy their own home. 85% are 1st time buyers pic.twitter.com/qJoMi0ZKrh
The question about Help To Buy is not "bubble", but how many of the homes built & sold through it would have been built anyway?
The question about Help To Buy is not "bubble", but how many of the homes built & sold through it would have been built anyway?
10.24am BST
New official stats released today on the #HelptoBuy mortgage guarantee scheme can be accessed in full on our website http://t.co/4Zj32GgnUb
10.21am BST
Back in the UK, the government has released details of how its Help To Buy mortgage subsidy scheme has been used.
It shows that a total of 7,313 mortgages have been supported by the second stage of Help to Buy during the first six months of its existence, with 80% going to first-time buyers.
9.37am BST
IMF Christine @Lagarde visits Maputo, Mozambique for the #AfricaRising conference. pic.twitter.com/fwwOc8moOO
9.33am BST
Christine Lagarde also used her speech in Mozambique to urge politicians to boost female education and close the gap between boys and girls - saying it could be costing the region $90bn per year in lost activity.
The IMF chief said:
I know that most of the women in Africa cannot afford not to work. But when they do, they are mostly employed in informal activities. We all know what this means: low productivity, low incomes, low prospects. We also know the constraints: access to education, credit, and markets.
The gains to be made by overcoming these constraints are immenseparticularly through girls education. By some estimates, the economic loss in developing countries from the education gap between girls and boys could be as high as $90 billion a yearalmost as much as the infrastructure gap for the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa!
9.28am BST
International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde has warned that poverty in Africa is still "unacceptably high", despite almost two decades of growing "growing strongly and steadily".
Economic stability has paid off. More than two-thirds of the countries in the region have enjoyed ten or more years of uninterrupted growth.
This growth has delivered a more educated population, with significant declines in infant mortality. In Benin and Madagascar, for example, primary school enrolment has increased by more than 50 percentage points. This may be from low levels, but it is still a huge improvement.
Africa building to the futurethree priorities: build infrastructure, institutions, and people http://t.co/H173NingtQ #AfricaRising
9.19am BST
Kingfisher is looking beyond Europe for future growth opportunities, flags up Retail Week's Nicola Harrison.
Kingfisher eyeing growth outside Europe.Boss Ian Cheshire says franchise model of would-be acquisition Mr Bricolage can easily be exported
9.02am BST
Analysts at ING say today's updated US GDP data (due at 1.30pm BST) could show that America's economy contracted in the January-March period.
They're not too worried, though, as it's largely due to last winter's bad weather:
There is a clear risk of a downward revision to today's figure, which could result in the first negative reading for 3 years. However, this was heavily weather related and activity for the second quarter so far is pointing to a robust rebound.
8.57am BST
Kingfisher's warning that France remains a tough business environment has caught the City's eye.
Retail analyst Nick Bubb says:
France also saw some weather benefit and reported like-for-like sales up 1.6%, with improved gross margins, but investors may be disappointed to hear that the underlying French DIY market was still weak,
The company is aware of a restrained economic backdrop in France, whilst gross margins suffered in the UK given the rise in demand for cheaper products and a number of sales in the period.
8.52am BST
In other corporate news, British Gas boss Chris Weston is off to run temporary power firm Aggreko.
An escape from fielding flack about rising energy bills in the UK?
Centricas chief executive Sam Laidlaw, who has run the company since 2006, is expected to leave before the end of the year and in January the group lost its finance chief Nick Luff, who has yet to be replaced. Weston, who will not join Aggreko until next year, was reportedly interviewed to replace Laidlaw but missed out on the top job.
8.45am BST
British food ingredients firm Tate & Lyle has warned that America's cold spring, and "prolonged and severe winter" hit demand, as it reports a 3% drop in sales last year.
It is also suffering from tough competition in the sucralose sweetener market -- eating into profits on its Splenda sweetener.
8.35am BST
Spain's statistics office has confirmed that its economy grew by 0.4% in the last quarter - in line with the initial estimate.
Spanish Q1 #GDP confirmed at +0.4% q/q - INE
8.27am BST
April was a strong month for British automobile manufacturing, with the number of cars made in the UK up by a fifth.
8.22am BST
France isn't the only country where Kingfisher found it hard to grow sales.
It also reports that it racked up a loss in China in the last quarter, and blamed the slowdown in the property market:
B&Q China sales were down 5.0% to £68 million (-4.4% LFL) impacted by a slowing Chinese property market.
Retail losses of £7 million, in what is traditionally the weakest trading quarter of the year (impacted by Chinese New Year), were broadly flat year on year, including costs developing the new format trial of around £1 million.
8.19am BST
The weakness of the French economy has hit Kingfisher, the firm behind B&Q, and taken the shine off some otherwise impressive results.
While like-for-like sales in the UK surged by over 10% in the last quarter, French sales only crept up by 1.6% despite retailers benefitting from much better weather this year.
Encouraging underlying signs in the UK & Poland offset by ongoing weak consumer confidence in France
8.05am BST
The big news overnight is that Japanese retail sales took a real tumble last month, as the country's sales tax hit consumers.
Japanese retail sales fell by 4.4% on an annual basis in April, the biggest fall in three years (since the Fukushima disaster), as people cut back on purchases of cars and electronics.
In one encouraging sign, declines in sales of apparel and toiletries were limited, which suggests consumer spending will pick up in May in line with the Bank of Japan's scenario, but there are worries that a recovery in durable goods could take more time.
"There are signs that declines in spending on daily necessities is already bottoming out, which supports a gradual recovery in spending," said Shuji Tonouchi, senior fixed income strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.
8.04am BST
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the financial market, the world economy, the eurozone and business.
Lots of corporate news knocking around this morning -- with results from retail chain Kingfisher, sugar-maker Tate & Lyle and water firm Severn Trent.
Just published: front page of the Financial Times UK edition Thu May 29 pic.twitter.com/82iTlK0U6M
Bond prices continued to rise yesterday, but this time it wasnt just US, UK and German bonds that were in demand but peripheral bonds as well.
US treasuries hit their lowest yield since July last year while both German bunds and UK gilts headed back towards their 10 month lows set earlier this month.
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