UK

CENTRICA was up 0.3 to 3.62. Traders note market talk that Gazprom UK is saying that the company is not a bid target. Gazprom is closing in on a deal to boost its market presence in the UK, according to its deputy chief executive, The Daily Telegraph writes. Notes Gazprom has already expressed an interest in Centrica, as well as other European assets.

BARCLAYS (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/) was up 0.11 to 7.34. The company has put its controversial Firstplus loans business up for sale as it seeks to reduce further its exposure to high-risk lending, The Mail on Sunday reports. The company is understood to have asked Credit Suisse to find buyers for the specialist loans business, in a sale that could fetch as much as 400 million. The FT reports that Atticus Capital, an activist hedge fund with a 1% stake in the company, has called the company to drop its agreed bid for ABN Amro, warning it will vote against it if the company proceeds.

France

BNP-PARIBAS was up €1.73 to €88.89. According to The Times, SocGen is engaged in an urgent search for another group to combine with to avoid being taken over. Last Friday, Les Echos reported that SocGen had mandated two investment banks to advise on the possibility of merging with the company However, Le Figaro reports this morning that the company ’s management opposes the idea.

ALCATEL-LUCENT (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/) was up €0.22 to €10.09. The company shares traded higher on its Capital Markets Day. The company reiterates its guidance for revenue growth in 2007 to be in line with the carrier market rate (which UBS expects will grow in the mid single-digit range). CEO Patricia Russo emphasises in her presentation that integration is ‘on track’, with a new operating model being implemented and portfolio rationalisation complete. The company unveils a €10 million contract to build a 10 gigabit IP/Ethernet network for Telekom Malaysia.

VALLOUREC was up €8.28 to €232.27. The Business reports that BNP Paribas has been hired by a mystery client to examine a bid for the company The paper notes recent unconfirmed rumours that both Gazprom and Arcelor-Mittal had been studying a bid.

Germany

THYSSEN KRUPP was up €0.97 to €43.49. Shares in United States Steel (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/) jumped on Friday after Russian news agency Interfax reported that the company is interested in buying the group. the company reportedly says it is not in talks with the US group, nor with Russia’s Severstal, which was also speculated.

MERCK was up €0.07 to €102.72. The company will reportedly invest US$29.8 million in the US biotech group Archemix, expanding their alliance in developing aptamer-based therapeutics for treating cancer.

COLONIA REAL ESTATE wa up €1.17 to €33.47. WestLB upgrades to buy from add - with the target at €42. The broker has raised its earnings estimates after the excellent first quarter figures, it says, and the increase in the company ’s guidance.

Italy

TISCALI was down €0.03 to €2.35. A leading domestic broker considers the company ‘interesting’ and has a target price of €3.15 based on the possibility that the company could be bought out. Meanwhile, thanks to debt reduction following the sale of European units, the company is evaluating growth opportunities through acquisitions. Tele2 Italia, owned by Sweden’s Tele2, worth between € 350 million-€400 million, has been approached by the company the company may be seeking acquisitions, although the company ’s managers are not participating in any talks now, writes Il Corriere della Sera, citing CEO Tommaso Pompei. The company may bid for WiMax licenses, adds Pompei.

BANCA ITALEASE was up €2.08 to €21.92.

The crisis at Northern Rock claimed its first victim today when Matt Ridley, chairman of the Newcastle-based bank, resigned three days after MPs accused him of “clinging to office”.

In a statement to the Stock Exchange, the Northern Rock board said “the time was right” for Mr Ridley to step down and announced that he will be succeeded by Bryan Sanderson, a former chairman of Standard Chartered Bank and Bupa. He was also a main board director of BP.

Mr Ridley’s departure comes a month after the funding crisis that has engulfed Northern Rock exploded into the public arena and caused the first run on a bank in Britain for more than a century.

Northern Rock — which has been forced to borrow 16bn in emergency funding from the Bank of England — said Mr Ridley had volunteered to resign last month, but that the board had asked him to stay in place “until the new funding arrangements were in place” and until he had represented Northern Rock before MPs at the Treasury select committee hearing earlier this week. It is understood that Mr Sanderson was approached to take over last week and Mr Ridley knew he was about to step down when he appeared before MPs.

John McFall, chairman of the select committee, said tonight that Mr Ridley’s departure was inevitable after his poor performance in front of MPs and called on the new chairman to sack other directors. “The resignation of Matt Ridley came as no surprise after the woeful performance of the board at the committee hearing,” he said. “I welcome the appointment of Bryan Sanderson. However, for the sake of the Northern Rock depositors, employees and the wider community in the north-east, the new chairman must move swiftly to strengthen and renew the board.”

His comments were echoed by the Liberal Democrat shadow chancellor, Vince Cable. He said the government “should have made Mr Ridley’s departure a condition of its loan, rather than waiting for him to go”. Mr Cable, who is also acting leader of his party, added: “There are other directors, including Derek Wanless [head of the bank’s risk committee], who are equally culpable. All of the senior management of the company led by Mr Applegarth [Northern Rock’s chief executive] should have been cleared out on day one.”

Mr Ridley’s resignation will take effect as soon as Mr Sanderson is officially approved by financial regulators. Tonight it was unclear whether Mr Ridley, who was paid 315,000 a year, will receive a pay-off. The bank refused to say how much Mr Sanderson will be paid, but said it would be in line with other non-executive chairmen of UK banks. On that basis it is likely to be around 500,000 a year.

At the select committee earlier this week, when the bank’s bosses said that all the directors had offered their resignations, MPs accused Mr Ridley of “damaging the good name of British banking”. The directors, however, said the bank had been hit by an unforeseeable credit crunch. Mr Ridley described the problems the bank had faced as “an unpredictable concatenation of events”.

A journalist and geneticist by profession, Mr Ridley joined the board of Northern Rock in 1994. His father, Viscount Ridley, was also chairman of Northern Rock.

September 19, 2007 — MERRILL Lynch executives say the three possible locations in the city for a new headquarters remain candidates, though none of them is ideal.

That’s because with the city popping at the seams, and no ideal location available to accommodate the type of floor plan envisioned by the bulge-bracket firm, none is a sure bet.

What Merrill execs did tell us was that size matters and that the lower Manhattan options at the new World Trade Center and World Financial Center are simply too small and would force the bank to develop a second building in Jersey City.

But the financial giant also worries that Vornado Realty Trust’s Hotel Pennsylvania site, across from Madison Garden, is not attractive enough to employees.

It is also described as too “iffy,” as it needs prolonged civic and city variances and approvals to be as large enough to fill the bank’s needs - at least 3 million square feet with one large 80,000-foot trading floor.

“Hudson Yards [on the West Side near the Javits Center] is just not ready yet and we’re not pioneers,” said one top Merrill executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, adding the development plans for an area now made up of railroad tracks is still on the city’s drawing boards.

Competing Brookfield Properties’ and Silverstein Properties’ proposals call for several smaller trading floors, but Merrill traders say they need eye contact with multiple co-workers to make proper bids and therefore feel they must be on one floor.

Brookfield’s proposal for a 500,000-foot expansion of 2 World Financial Center would still leave Merrill 20 percent short on its trading floor needs.

Meanwhile, Silverstein Properties’ upcoming new Tower 3 at the World Trade Center site comes up 15 percent short, and faces another hurdle for Merrill - the rents he’s seeking.

Said the Merrill source of Larry Silverstein: “He’s insane in terms of the numbers he’s throwing around.”

Both the Brookfield and Silverstein sites would require the expense of building and operating a second tower to accommodate a move by 3,000 to 5,000 people who won’t fit into either of the two downtown options.

“We need flexibility going forward. It is a critical [need],” added our source. “[No one wants] to be the bonehead who built us the wrong trading floor 10 years from now.” >PAGE 1>