Barclays in $10bn talks over BGI sale - papers

Barclays is in talks about selling asset management arm Barclays Global Investors for about $10bn, with potential bidders including US money manager Blackrock, according to people familiar with the matter, The Financial Times says.

Talks on the potential sale of BGI are the outcome of an initial auction for iShares, the fast-growing exchange-traded funds unit of BGI, which Barclays agreed to sell to CVC Capital Partners, the private equity group, for $4.2bn last month.

Under a "go-shop" provision of that sale, Barclays can seek alternative bidders for iShares until June 18. The bank must pay a $175m break-up fee to CVC if it selects an alternative bid.

BlackRock manages $1,280bn. Buying BGI would give BlackRock a huge boost in exchange-traded funds, one of the hottest areas of asset management. Full story...

LORD MYNERS IS SAVAGED for "naiveté" over his handling of Sir Fred Goodwin's £16.9m pension pot in a damning report by the Treasury select committee of MPs, according to The Guardian.

The committee says that the City minister should have demanded that the former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive be fired over his role in the bank's downfall, instead of allowed to retire with an enhanced pension.

In its latest report, the committee also accuses the City regulator, the Financial Services Authority, of being too complacent about the bonus culture that caused the "reckless and excessive risk-taking" at the heart of the banking crisis.

The committee heard details about the way Goodwin's pension was settled on the October weekend of the bank bailout when the taxpayer put £20bn into RBS. Myners argued he did not know the RBS board, chaired by Sir Tom McKillop, had used its discretion to allow Goodwin to retire early - and bolstered his pension to £703,000 a year from age 50 - and insisted that he had demanded there would be no "reward for failure" Full story...

THE CHINESE YUAN IS preparing to overtake the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, economist Nouriel Roubini has warned, reports The Telegraph.

Professor Roubini, of New York University's Stern business school, believes that while such a major change is some way off, the Chinese government is laying the ground for the yuan's ascendance.

Known as "Dr Doom" for his negative stance, Prof Roubini argues that China is better placed than the US to provide a reserve currency for the 21st century because it has a large current account surplus, focused government and few of the economic worries the US faces.

In a column in the New York Times, Prof Roubini warns that with the proposal for a new international reserve currency via the International Monetary Fund, Beijing has already begun to take steps to usurp the greenback.

China will soon want to see the yuan included in the International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights "basket", he warns, as well as seeing it "used as a means of payment in bilateral trade." Full story...