Monday evening business bulletin

Jun 23 2008 By Andrew Mernin

The London market broke its three-day losing streak today as strong gains from oil and commodity stocks offset another dire session for banks and property firms.

The FTSE 100 Index closed 46.4 points higher at 5667.2 despite heavy falls from the likes of Halifax Bank of Scotland and Land Securities.

HBOS led a poor session for financial stocks as shares returned below the company’s rights issue price of 275p.

HBOS, 12p lower at 270.5p, suffered after UBS trimmed its target price and one hedge funds revealed a ``short" position of more than 3% in the bank - betting on a share price fall.

The news once more raised questions over the appetite for its £4bn investor cash call, with only a few days left before shareholders are set to vote on whether the move should go ahead.

The GMB union will begin consultation with employers tomorrow over 300 job cuts at two pizza factories in Manchester.

The talks come after Paramount Foods announced the redundancies at its Deeside and Salford plants on Friday.

The GMB is also demanding a meeting with supermarket giant Asda, which was one of Paramount’s main customers but has reduced its orders.

Paramount is planning to shed 144 jobs from a workforce of 488 at Salford, where the pizza bases are baked. At Deeside, which makes the toppings, 156 out of 241 staff could go.

The 90-day consultation period is set to end in September.

The union’s North-West regional officer Mark Jones said: ``The GMB will do everything we can to see what alternatives there are to these redundancies."

More than two-thirds of young people claim they have been encouraged to take out debt they did not want or could not afford, research showed today.

Around 68% of people aged between 16 and 24 said they had been encouraged to take out credit, while nearly half of young people admitted they had suffered debt problems, according to Citizens Advice and young people’s charity YouthNet.

People were most likely to be offered a store card while out shopping, with 83% of people offered debt they did not want, saying they had been offered one of the cards, and 77% had received unsolicited credit offers through the post.

A further 49% had been offered credit by email, 46% had been stopped in the street and 37% had been offered credit by telephone.

The pound at 5pm was US$1.9609 compared to US$1.9733 at the previous close while the euro at 5pm was £0.7900  compared to £0.7921 at the previous close.