Financial Times - Europe homepage

• BA-Iberia has 12 on takeover target list
  Willie Walsh, British Airways’s chief, and top Iberia executives have drawn up a list of 12 candidates to buy or merge with once their own tie-up is finalised in a plan that would create the world’s largest airline
  
  
• Asian shares higher on US jobs data
  Asian shares are higher as better-than-expected US jobs data ease concerns about the global economic recovery, though investors are cautious ahead of the US market holiday
  
  
• Oracle looks to give Hurd leading role
  Oracle’s board will meet within days to vote on a deal to bring Mark Hurd to the company in a top role, marking a rapid corporate rehabilitation for the ousted Hewlett-Packard chief executive
  
  
• Fears rise as EU nations aim to raise borrowing
  The eurozone debt crisis is about to enter a dangerous phase as governments prepare to step up borrowing in the capital markets to fund their faltering economies
  
  
• Santander could hire 6,000 new staff
  The Spanish banking group is set to launch a recruitment drive that could see it hire 6,000 people as it presses ahead with UK expansion
  
  
• Cross-border lending by banks rises
  Cross-border lending by banks rose at the start of this year for the first time since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in a sign that the reversal of financial globalisation seen in the past two years is coming to an end
  
  
• Private equity groups line up bids for Polkomtel
  Apax Partners, Blackstone, TPG and CVC Capital Partners are among the big private equity groups working on potential bids for Polkomtel, one of Poland’s biggest mobile phone operators
  
  
• Vodafone starts hunt for new chairman
  Sir John Bond is preparing to step down as Vodafone’s chairman following renewed shareholder unrest about the mobile group’s strategy and acquisitions
  
  
• Obama seeks to retain R&D tax credit
  President is to ask Congress to expand and make permanent a tax credit for research and development to boost a flagging economic recovery
  
  
• No escape from tighter EU financial supervision
  ‘No one will escape’ tighter financial supervision in the European Union in the future, warned the bloc’s Internal Market Commissioner, even as he attempted to reassure the industry to ‘remain calm’ over the new regulatory regime