Date: Tuesday 17 Mar 2015
LONDON (ShareCast) - Thousands of clients of HSBC on the mainland have been told their accounts in the Channel Islands are to be closed. That comes as the lender seeks to ensure that its services are not being used to avoid paying taxes in the UK, according to The Times.
Trinity Mirror, the owner of the Daily Mirror, has been given access to the confidential accounts of Richard Desmond's Daily Express. Nonetheless, contacts are at an early stage, one source told The Times, while another insisted that they were at an "advanced" stage. Mr.Desmond stands to bank £100m if the sale goes ahead, the latter added.
France, Germany and Italy have agreed to join China-led Asia Infrastructure Bank alongside Britain according to the Financial Times.
US hedge-fund Stonehill Capital Management has scooped up the majority of the £430m in senior bonds in Phones 4U which were left almost worthless in the wake of the retailer's collapse last year. The distressed debt specialist's holdings of those instruments, which were sold on the Irish market in 2011, may allow it to mount a legal attack on BC partners, the private equity outfit which raised the cash to buy Phones 4U in 2011, The Daily Telegraph says.
An Iranian nuclear deal to ease Western sanctions could drastically alter the price of oil as talks intensify, wrote The Wall Street Journal.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted ahead of the upcoming election that a Palestinian state will never be established so long as he stays in office, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The US has offered former prime minister Tony Blair a new role in the Middle East as part of a fresh peace initiative, said The Times.
Chancellor George Osbourne has proposed a £6bn boost to the economy that will permit tax cuts for millions of middle-class families, wrote The Daily Telegraph.
The Tory party has planned to allow parents to pass property worth less than £1m to their children without paying inheritance tax, according to The Guardian.
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