Investors urge VT to speak to Babcock

Rhys Jones and Joel Dimmock LONDON Wed Feb 24, 2010 10:35am EST Related News Investors write urging VT Group to talk to BabcockWed, Feb 24 2010UPDATE 5-VT sets its sights on 800p/share bid from BabcockThu, Feb 18 2010VT sets its sights on 800 pence a share from BabcockThu, Feb 18 2010VT shareholders want 800p from Babcock - VT sourceThu, Feb 18 2010PRESS DIGEST - Financial Times - Feb 18Wed, Feb 17 2010

LONDON (Reuters) - VT Group investors are urging the company to enter takeover talks with suitor Babcock International, with one major VT shareholder writing to the firm"s board calling on it to open its books.

Deals

"One or two investors have written letters to the effect that maybe VT should be opening their books," a top VT shareholder told Reuters on Wednesday on condition of anonymity.

"We"ve made it blatantly obvious that we would like them to enter into negotiations," the shareholder said, adding that a price of 800 pence a share "would be nice but I don"t think we"re going to get there."

VT, once a naval shipbuilder and now a support services company, snubbed approaches from Babcock twice last week and has set its sights on an 800 pence-per-share offer that would value the group at 1.44 billion pounds ($2.23 billion).

Analysts and shareholders believe somewhere between 725 and 775 pence a share is more realistic.

Babcock, which services the Royal Navy"s submarines, on Thursday increased its proposed bid to as much as 715 pence per VT share, paying with 0.701 of its own shares plus cash in an offer valuing VT at up to 1.29 billion pounds.

Before Babcock made its move, VT had raised its own previously rejected bid for Mouchel, boosting hopes it would clinch a 330 million pounds deal for the infrastructure support services group as part of moves to diversify beyond the defense industry.

UNDER PRESSURE

Two other VT shareholders told Reuters that VT is coming under growing pressure from investors to enter talks with Babcock. The company"s biggest shareholder Invesco declined to comment.

"I think there is increasing pressure coming from VT shareholders for them to open their books," said a shareholder in both VT and Babcock, adding that it was now up to the second tier of VT shareholders to put pressure on the board.

Angela Lascelles, joint managing director at OLIM Ltd, which holds 1.49 percent of VT shares, said "there is some pressure (on VT) but you don"t open your books until there is an acceptable offer on the table and we"re clearly not there yet."

Asked whether an offer around 750 pence would get VT to open its books, OLIM"s Lascelles said, "yes, I would think so."

"I think they"re going to open the books," said one major shareholder, adding that "somewhere between seven and eight pounds" would probably be enough for VT to talk.

"It"s a merger made in heaven, unless you happen to own a lot of Mouchel shares," he said referring to Schroders fund manager Andy Brough, who controls 8.8 percent of Babcock"s shares and a 12.6 percent stake in Mouchel, the largest institutional holding in both firms, and opposes Babcock"s pursuit of VT.

"It"s quite likely that Babcock would nudge the offer higher if they were given access to the books -- whether they should or not from the perspective of a Babcock shareholder is another matter," the joint VT-Babcock shareholder said.

Analysts at Numis have said VT should hold out for an offer of 775p a share, while Arbuthnot analyst David Brockton believes Babcock could stretch to 760 pence "in the absence of further synergy benefits."

Shares in VT were down 0.45 percent at 660.5 pence by 1532 GMT while Babcock was 1.0 percent weaker at 540 pence.

Britain"s Takeover Panel is this week expected to tell Babcock to make a formal offer for VT or walk away for six months following a request from management at the bid target.

For a Factbox on the two companies, double-click on

($1=.6473 pounds)

(Editing by Paul Hoskins and Mike Nesbit)

Deals

Alastair Cook can hoop England with caring but not charisma

Mike Atherton, Chief Cricket Correspondent, Dhaka & , : {}

Taking England into the final session of the final day is another of the small steps to respectability that Jamie Siddons, the Bangladesh coach, spoke of before the start of this match. But this was still a heavy defeat and a demoralising one of sorts, given the earlier fight his team had shown.

Ultimately, the Test-playing nation with only four bowling machines at their disposal had no answer to the team lacking for nothing.

England, with all their coaches, trainers, masseurs and money, with facilities and talent that puts the home team to shame, should beat Bangladesh and they did, although taking in the series as a whole, they made hard work of it. On this evidence England are a workmanlike team, at least in conditions that demand a little more than honest-to-goodness seam and finger spin.

Still, great credit to Alastair Cook, who returns the team to Andrew Strauss undamaged, undefeated and in good heart, although he should do so with the message that the next time the team set out on an unglamorous, physically demanding expedition, the captain might think about joining them.

Related LinksThe Edge: England need a bowling coach ... and fastTrescothick to follow Vaughans exampleMultimediaMIKE ATHERTON: where poverty makes defeat a gift MIKE ATHERTON QA: Cook still has much to learn

The ECB announced yesterday that Strausss first appearance of the season would be tomorrow at Harrow Saint Marys Cricket Club, launching the NatWest CricketForce. He should have been travelling home with his players instead.

Later, Andy Flower, the England team director, called the efforts of his stand-in captain outstanding, but in a funny way, Cook neither enhanced nor damaged his prospects of taking over from Strauss eventually. He scored a bucketload of runs, and stylishly, in the one-day internationals and the Test matches, and led the team diligently and responsibly, but he did not suggest that he has the kind of instinctive feel for the game that captains would ideally possess. He looks a manufactured leader the best are born, not made.

But he had an excellent day yesterday, taking a couple of hunch-like decisions that paid off and scoring a beautifully paced and undefeated hundred to push his team to victory. As Cook strolled gently to his twelfth Test hundred, along with Kevin Pietersen, who kept his captain company until the finish with a crisp and fluent 74 that confirmed he is back to somewhere near his überconfident best, it was clear that England had finally broken Bangladeshs spirit.

The only casualty in the run chase was Jonathan Trott, who was run out after responding to his captains call for a sharp single. If some of the umpiring earlier in the match had caused comment, this decision beggared belief because the replays showed that Trott had made his ground by the time the stumps had been broken. Trott has had an unfortunate tour, given out off his helmet in Chittagong, the ball unluckily dribbling on to his stumps in the first innings here and then hung on no evidence in the second. The third umpire responsible for making this howler was called, appropriately, Nadir Shah.

No one characterised Bangladeshs broken spirit in the afternoon more than Shakib Al Hasan, the 23-year-old captain. He plainly had nothing more to give in the final two sessions of the day, which was unsurprising because he had bowled 66 overs in Englands first innings and played a lone hand on the fifth morning with the bat. It was a heartbreaking moment when he fell stumped, last man out just after lunch.

As James Tredwell spun one past his charge, Al Hasan dived to make his ground, in vain, and lay briefly mired in sweat and dust: he will have reflected at that moment on the cruelty of the game, on the heavy burden that he carries as captain of the poorest team at the top level of international cricket and, perhaps, on the inexplicable strokes of two of his team-mates, Shafiul Islam and Naeem Islam, as they tried to stave off defeat.

Bangladesh had started the day positively 11 fours came in the first hour and, as the second new ball approached, England were starting to fret. A couple of catches had been put down off Al Hasan to take Englands total of muffs in the match to ten, although the one put down by Trott at deep mid-wicket was fiendishly hard, Matt Priors behind the stumps much easier.

With Stuart Broads radar missing, Cook gave Tredwell the second new ball an inspired move. Flighting the ball generously, he suckered both Islams into trying unsuccessfully to clear the ropes, although the dismissals were as much down to the batsmens naivety and panic as to any calculations on Englands part. Then, in another inspired move, Cook turned to Steven Finn, who trapped Abdur Razzak immediately, so that Bangladesh went to lunch nine wickets down and, to all intents and purposes, out.

Bangladesh: First Innings 419 (Tamim Iqbal 85, Mahmudullah 59, Naeem Islam 59, Shafiul Islam 53; G P Swann 4 for 114)

Second Innings (overnight 172-6)*Shakib Al Hasan st b Tredwell 96Shafiul Islam c Trott b Tredwell 28Naeem Islam c Pietersen b Tredwell 3Abdur Razzak lbw b Finn 8Rubel Hossain not out 0Extras (lb 3, w 5) 8Total (102 overs) 285Fall of wickets: 1-23, 2-86, 3-110, 4-130, 5-156, 6-169, 7-232, 8-258, 9-275.Bowling: Broad 16-2-72-2; Bresnan 13-2-34-1; Tredwell 34-8-82-4; Finn 9-3-21-1; Swann 30-7-73-2.

England: First Innings 496 (I R Bell 138, T T Bresnan 91, I J L Trott 64, M J Prior 62; Shakib Al Hasan 4 for 124)

Second Innings*A N Cook not out 109I J L Trott run out 19K P Pietersen not out 74Extras (b 2, lb 4, nb 1) 7Total (1 wkt, 44 overs) 209Fall of wicket: 1-42.Bowling: Shafiul Islam 6-0-22-0; Razzak 15-0-67-0; Al Hasan 8-0-31-0; Mahmudullah 7-1-38-0; Hossain 4-0-26-0; Naeem Islam 4-0-19-0.Umpires: A L Hill (New Zealand) and R J Tucker (Australia).

Japanese gaming to distinction from kid subsidies

Leo Lewis, Middle East Business Correspondent & , : {}

Japan"s gambling industry is approaching to be an doubtful customer of a inhabitant kid funding scheme, that aims to showering relatives with income and inspire immature couples to begin families.

Pachinko parlours the discordant pinball arcades that explain about twenty-three trillion yen (171 billion) in bootleg gambling revenues each year are approaching to perform generally well. The monthly family good payments are ideally matched to fuel a integrate of hours" play.

Several sectors of the Japanese economy are sloping to good from the Y2.2 trillion programme, by that family groups will embrace payments of Y13,000 (97) each month for each kid if the new Government is means to pull the much-vaunted programme by parliament.

Payments will climb to Y23,000 a month in the second year of the intrigue as piece of the Governments bid to denote that the State will henceforth be on the side of family groups and childrearing.

Related LinksRise of casinos could still din of the pachinko parlourSega Sammy to close Japanese arcadesShotgun weddings a flourishing niche in Japan

The past dual decades have witnessed relentless declines in the Japanese bieing born rate, call a range of demographic concerns, from a miss of aged caring sustenance to long-term mercantile catastrophe.

The sectors compared with the kid funding intrigue that have already captivated investors" courtesy embody viewable beneficiaries, such as makers of childrens clothes, baby products and in isolation tutorial establishments.

Theme play ground operators, Nintendo and alternative fondle and videogame makers additionally crop up in the good basket of bonds that could benefit as relatives eventually have the income to stoop to their childrens nagging.

However, in a note to investors, Daiwa Securities analysts additionally point out the being of what happens when governments unexpected have inexhaustible income payments, generally if the funding income is paid in to the fathers bank account. Because the income is not disbursed in the form of vouchers, Daiwa says, the kid stipend represents a dark reward for the gambling industry.

Largely since of the authorised grey section in that they thrive, pachinko salon operators are not listed on the batch exchange. The producers of the machines, however, are sloping to perform strongly. Stocks of Heiwa, Sankyo, SegaSammy and Aruze all crop up on Daiwas list of bonds to watch.

The filter-through of impulse income to the pachinko parlours has chronological precedent. Last April, the Governments wider impulse programme concerned 140 income handouts to family groups and was dictated to trigger ubiquitous spending opposite the sell and services zone in Japan. Pachinko bonds were the best-performing equities in the marketplace over the following 6 months. In 2007, pachinko revenues are thought to have surpassed those of the complete Japanese grill industry.

Other analysts have questioned the knowledge of the kid funding proposal. Research by the Kansai Institute of Social and Economic investigate found that usually somewhat some-more than half of Japanese were certain about the thought and some-more than a third dictated simply to shake any income they perceived in to assets or paying-off loans. Of those who pronounced they would save the money, 37 per cent pronounced they would actively save it for their childrens future.

hair wig

Manchester United fans put bar prior to criticism Manchester United

Ben Smith and Robert Dineen & , : {}

Predictions that Manchester United fans would protest the opening ten mins of tonight"s Champions League tie opposite AC Milan at Old Trafford unsuccessful to materalise, but a investigate currently referred to they are formulation to strike the Glazers where it hurts - in the pocket.

A investigate conducted by Virgin Money referred to that two-thirds of United fans are deliberation not renewing their deteriorate tickets subsequent deteriorate as they step up their rebel opposite the American family"s tenure of the club.

With United being the usually Premier League bar to enlarge their season-ticket prices for the 2009/10 season, the consult additionally found that fifteen per cent of season-ticket holders will give up their tickets completely, whilst an additional 44 per cent will buy tickets for matches usually occasionally.

Reports had referred to that fans would protest the begin of the tie opposite AC Milan in a visible proof opposite the Glazers but there were no dull seats at the ground. The tie has combined piquancy given David Beckham, who has been declared between the Milan substitutes, done his initial lapse as a on vacation player given withdrawal United to stick on Real Madrid in 2003.

Related LinksFerguson heedful of Beckham fairytale returnRed Knights see easterly in conflict for UnitedUnited physical education instructor bugged by England view storyMultimediaOLIVER KAY QA: United will not fright Beckham OLIVER KAY QA: United could face dull seats JAMES DUCKER: Glazers, not Gill, the genuine rivalry

United supporters" disappointment with the Malcolm Glazer and his sons has been exacerbated by outrageous sheet cost increases, with the normal season-ticket cost going up from 487 pre-takeover to 722 this year.

For the initial time in vital memory, that has led a singular series of deteriorate tickets being put on ubiquitous sale last summer, even though traditionally there has been a prolonged watchful list for deteriorate tickets.

Season tickets are still labelled astronomically compared with alternative vital European leagues such as Spain, Italy and Germany," Malcolm Clarke, Chairman of the Football Supporters Federation, said. "Shamefully, Manchester United was the usually Premier League bar that put up their prices for the stream season. Every alternative bar froze or marked down them.

"They additionally sole Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid. Huge numbers of United fans are in open rebel opposite the Glazer familys outrageous money empty on the club. Theyre profitable the cost for the leveraged buy-out in 2005 that has installed a large 700 million debt on to Uniteds books. The Glazer system of administration has put up sheet prices by half in less than five years. No consternation roughly 6 out of ten Old Trafford season-ticket holders are meditative of not renewing.

The recoil opposite deteriorate tickets is seen via clubs in the Premier League notwithstanding total display that the cost of in attendance games has depressed by 6 per cent in the past year. According to the Virgin Money study, fans of Liverpool and Stoke City are the slightest expected to give up deteriorate tickets subsequent year with usually 9 per cent of them deliberation cutbacks.

Percentage of fans deliberation cancelling deteriorate tickets

Manchester United 59 Wolves 54 Burnley 31 Fulham twenty-nine Everton twenty-eight Blackburn twenty-eight Portsmouth twenty-eight West Ham twenty-seven Aston Villa twenty-four Sunderland twenty-three Wigan twenty-one Tottenham nineteen Manchester City eighteen Birmingham seventeen Chelsea seventeen Hull seventeen Arsenal fourteen Bolton thirteen Liverpool 9 Stoke City 9

hair wig

Sutcliffes query for release would meant giving him a new identity

Frances Gibb Legal Editor & , : {}

The decider was quick to lift the disguise of anonymity from Peter Sutcliffe yesterday, as the mixed torpedo practical for a statute on when he competence be deliberate for parole.

But the box is call concerns that if Sutcliffe is postulated a smallest jail tenure or price tag that would end in the nearby future, he will request not usually for recover but additionally for a singular lifelong anonymity order.

Already the Yorkshire Ripper is utilizing the name Peter Coonan. In Oct a decider destined that in justice he should be called Sutcliffe, so as to safety the confidentiality of his new identity. Yesterday the media, led by The Times, argued successfully that the alias of Coonan was in the open domain and could be mentioned.

Lifelong anonymity would give him an wholly new temperament again, enabling him to live his hold up in the shadows, well well known usually to the smallest handful of trial and military officers.

Related LinksRipper "wrongly convicted of murder"Justice contingency be seen to be done, manners judgeThe undoing of Peter Sutcliffe, sequence torpedo

But Sutcliffe faces multiform hurdles prior to he could mountain such a claim. As well as winning a price tag that gives a little awaiting of release, he can request for recover usually if deemed mentally fit for send from Broadmoor to a prison.

It would afterwards be for his lawyers to find the extenuation of a lifelong anonymity sequence from the High Court.

Only 3 have been postulated in England and Wales: the initial to Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, the killers of the toddler, James Bulger, in 2001. The second was to the kid torpedo Mary Bell and her daughter in 2003 when her daughter was roughly eighteen and orders safeguarding their identities compartment that date were ending. The third was to Maxine Carr, former partner of the Soham killer Ian Huntley, in 2005.

Such orders are postulated on focus to a decider who has to confirm if there is a postulated hazard to the people hold up and wellbeing. In the box of MaxineCarr for instance, her counsel, Edward Fitzgerald, QC, argued that there was a genuine and poignant risk of damage or of worse murdering if the claim is not granted.

Ironically, the worse a persons crime, the some-more expected they are to be postulated the good of a new hold up and identity.

So the border and sobriety of Sutcliffes crimes he was convicted in 1981 of thirteen counts of attempted attempted murder and 7 counts of attempted attempted attempted murder in Yorkshire and Greater Manchester would make firm his case, if such an focus were made.

Public annoy from the most family groups concerned would be sure to put Sutcliffe at risk if his locale were known.

Planning in such cases takes most months, heading up to a recover date. Sutcliffe would be since a home, new passport, word and amicable security papers and furnished with a new past, sketch on experience gained in declare insurance programmes.

Only the smallest series of officials, from the trial and military services, would know his whereabouts, since similar to any alternative killer on looseness he would need consistent monitoring and be compulsory to inform to a comparison trial officer.

For that reason, criminals underneath lifelong anonymity orders wouldremain in this country.

So far, such orders have been successfully maintained, nonetheless that might turn harder as the meridian of open perspective becomes some-more vengeful, with internal groups infrequently focussed on tracking people down, so he would have a hotline to the internal military hire in box of any vigilante attack.

There would be a open cheer over the extenuation of lifelong anonymity to Sutcliffe, as with the others, even though the pattern would have been the risk that he faces from the public.

However, whilst he poses a risk, no such anonymity sequence is likely. Harry Fletcher, partner ubiquitous cabinet member of the National Association of Probation Officers, predicted: He wouldnt be entrance out. It will be a whole-life tariff.

David Cameron muddles in the center Martin Kettle Comment is free

David Cameron is perplexing to interest to the centre ground. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

If you are on the Conservative party"s email list, afterwards you will, similar to me, have got a video summary from David Cameron this weekend. In one sense, the summary could frequency be clearer. Four years ago, says Cameron, Conservatives done a preference about the approach the celebration should be. They inaugurated him. The preference was to be "modern and in advance – not to fool around it protected or shelter in to the old joy zone". And that, Cameron afterwards adds, is the approach it"s going to stay.

Cameron had the same summary at the heart of

Climate campaigners reap what GM sowed | David Aaronovitch

David Aaronovitch & , : {}

On Sunday night, during a discuss on meridian shift at Wellington College in Berkshire, a man in the initial flowering plant of old age told the 350 people in the chapel that there was positively no peer-reviewed systematic justification whatsoever that there was a warming direction or that human wake up was contributing towards it. The total thing, he thought, was got up by governments to lift taxes.

I frequency need to discuss it you what I told the audience, that there is copiousness of such justification and rank and file of counterpart examination the somewhat overly suspicious and unnecessarily defensive actions of a little meridian scientists as suggested in Climategate notwithstanding. In the finish my side, the scaremongers, won the vote, but over a third of those benefaction motionless that tellurian warming was so most prohibited air.

In a new book out in America, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives, Michael Specter, The New Yorkers scholarship writer, links the misnamed climate-change doubt with a array of identical controversies that have noted the past dual decades. At these moments, an complete shred of society, mostly struggling with the mishap of change, argues Specter, turns afar from reality. They reinstate the law with a elite idea that conforms with their desires for the future. They boot constrained justification as only an additional point of perspective and reinstate authorities, whom once, perhaps, they used to certitude as well much, with experts of their own.

I was meditative about this yesterday when I listened that the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee had published a inform on the open appropriation of homeopathy. This cabinet has the glorious Liberal Democrat Dr Evan Harris on it, and the inform did not disappoint.

BACKGROUNDTofu can mistreat sourroundings some-more than meatIndividual CO allotment comment proposed"UN contingency examine tellurian warming biasGreen military set to unit wickedness kick

It forked out that the multiform millions of pounds outlayed by the Government on homeopathy could not be fit by the science. In randomised tranquil trials there was no justification of any efficiency over a remedy effect.

The inform has a little flattering droll moments. I would suggest the territory in that Dr Peter Fisher, senior manager of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, was asked how homeopathic dilutions are completed by a routine of powerful jolt well known as succussion. As the inform puts it, Dr Fisher settled that the routine of jolt is critical but was incompetent to contend how most jolt was required. He pronounced that has not been entirely investigated but did discuss it us that You have to shake up it energetically ... if you only stir it gently, it does not work.

Then Dr Michael Dixon, healing senior manager for the Princes Foundation for Integrated Health (established by Prince Charles, of whom some-more anon) spoke on the air wave arguing that randomised trials were no good for homeopathy, and that the genuine approach to decider the efficacy was, essentially, by patients revelation you possibly they thought it had worked for them.

This privileging of version over justification is a key evil of denialism, and opens the approach to illusion of all kinds. Allowing for a little genetic influence, removing fat or losing weight are sincerely elementary counts of calories in contra calories out. You cannot turn portly simply by examination TV and you dont lose weight simply by eating cabbage soup or most of the thousand alternative ways from that so most income has been done by so few. Quack diets only dope you in to shortening calories but observant so.

Such biased and unlearned notions of cause, mostly exploited by the deceived or the parsimonious and since a turn of fright and a sprig of conspiracism, distortion at the behind of the good MMR disaster. My kid was excellent prior to the shot, says the primogenitor looking a discerning reason of a tough condition. And after that, all the studies in the universe display positively zip association in between MMR and autism equate for nothing. So most so that Specter relates how threats have been done opposite the heads of US open health bodies whose pursuit it is to weigh vaccines.

But it was Specters chapters on biotechnology that suggested something more. They took me behind to the good genetically mutated media stuff oneself frenzy of 1998-99. You might recollect when Greenpeace activists dumped multiform tons of GM soya beans outward Downing Street, when the Daily Mail and The Guardian assimilated hands to call for a duration on the planting of GM crops, when the tenure Frankenfoods was invented, when immature Tom in The Archers heroically helped to rabble his dishonest uncles stand of GM oilseed rape, when the shrewd capitalists in the supermarkets carrying seen the polls admitted that this, that and the alternative was GM free, when the successor to the bench told us that, this kind of genetic alteration takes humankind in to realms that go to God, and God alone.

I stop operative on Newsnight as a substitute presenter during this row. A sole scientist, in the most appropriate storybook tradition, Dr Arpad Pusztai, told us about his investigate indicating that mice fed GM potatoes were suffering. The complete effort of the stating was that he was probably right. Later a row of 6 toxicologists allocated by the Royal Society pronounced that his work, that has never been replicated, was flawed. It would be unjustifiable, the row said, to pull from it ubiquitous conclusions about possibly genetically mutated dishes are damaging to human beings or not.

It was far as well late. GM-free is still a pinned token of quality, notwithstanding the utterly unscientific basis. Now, Specter claims, GM technologies will be necessary for stuff oneself the world, as will alternative biotechnological advances, but he fears that the activities of the denialists might forestall them from being harnessed.

In his view: We are possibly going to welcome new technologies with their stipulations and threats, or prowl in to an epoch of enchanting thinking.

I positively be concerned about that. But there is a abounding irony here, that it has taken me a little time to conclude and that I wish to share. Back in the crop-burning days of the late 1990s, when immature activists prevented even trials receiving place to find some-more about GM produce, they rode shotgun on the denialist wagon. They didnt caring that they didnt have the evidence, or that most of their await was mystical.

The fight opposite inlet has to end, Lord Melchett, the senior manager executive of Greenpeace, told Specter, and we are going to stop it.

And right away the immature transformation is in the stay of the governments and scientists, bitterly fighting the new denialists who contingency surely, in the difference of John Wayne, remind them of them. Reaping, not sowing.