TheChek News Flow

DAX:

MDAX:

SDAX:

* BAE Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan

* Coface Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan; PT 12.70 euros

* Engie Raised to Buy at HSBC; PT 17.40 euros

* Marks & Spencer Raised to Buy at Berenberg

Nikkei +1.47% Hang Seng +0.50% CSI +0.45% Shanghai +0.36% Shenzen +0.79%

Eur$ 1.1193 CNH 6.9515 CNY 6,9542 JPY 108.50 GBP 1.3172 CHF 0.9692 WTI $ 62.57 -1.10%

S&P +0.26% EuroStoxx +0.53% FTSE +0.61% Dax +0.62%

Macro :

- Byron Wien Predicts S&P 500 Will Surpass 3,500 as Fed Cuts Rates

- Bolton Would Testify If Subpoenaed in Trump Impeachment

- Norway Seafood Exports Climb to Record NOK107.3B for 2019

Keep an eye on :

- AIR FP : BOC Aviation Agrees to Buy 20 Airbus A320NEO Family Aircraft

- AIR FP : Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in Mid-January

- AI FP : Air Liquide Sees Currency Impact on 4Q Revenue Around +1.5%

- AVAP LN : Avation said it’s in preliminary talks about a potential sale - Daily Mail

- BOBNN SW : Bobst, Cito-System in Exclusive Talks on Majority Participation

- DAE SW : Datwyler Nominates Scherz as CFO, Succeeding Welte on April 1

- DAI GY : Daimler Goes Hollywood With ‘Avatar-Inspired’ Cyborg Concept Car

- EPR NO : Europris CEO Pal Wibe Resigns to Become CEO of XXL

- EQNR NO : Oil Giant Reveals Survival Tactics in Age of Climate Anxiety

- FCAU IM : Fiat Chrysler to Idle Ontario Minivan Plant Week of Jan. 20

- FUR NA : Fugro Says Tasik Toba Awarded $26.8m in Southern Star Dispute

- HSX LN : Hiscox Names James Millard as Chief Investment Officer

- KN FP : PJ Solomon Poaches Moelis Financial Services Banker Nate Stulman

- OMV AV: OMV, Romgaz May Bid Jointly for Exxon’s Black Sea Gas Project

- ALPHA FP : Pharnext Says Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease Drug Study Encouraging

- PHIA NA : Philips Drops Patent Suit Against QVC Over Smokeless Grill

- POM FP : Plastic Omnium Targets Ebitda Growth Through 2022

- RNO FP : Nissan Goes on Offensive as Carlos Ghosn Prepares to Strike Back

- SIE GY : Greta’s Activists Ask Siemens to Drop Australia Coal Deal: Welt

- SO FP : Somfy Overhauls Company Organization and Executive Committee

- SRAIL SW : Stadler Rail Gets U.S. Maintenance Contract Worth $112m (Jan. 6)

- STLN SW : *SCHMOLZ: BIGPOINT BUYS STAKE OF S+B BETEILIGUNGS GMBH IN S+B

- GLE FP : SocGen’s Oudea Calls for Creation of Europe Bank Champions: FT (Yesterday)

- SYDB DC : Sydbank Expects to Get New Board Members This Month: Berlingske

- TRI FP : Trigano 1Q Sales Fall 3.1% to EU559.7M

- UBSG SW : UBS Names Regional Wealth Heads, Trims Novakovic’s Territory

- VIB3 GY : Villeroy & Boch Prelim FY Revenue EU833 Mln; Shares Rise 3.0%

‘I’m clearly not that clever,’ Roger Jenkins tells court

A senior banker has told a London court how he and his colleagues had “wrestled” with various proposals about how to meet Qatari demands for additional fees as the Gulf state injected emergency funding into Barclays during its 2008 capital raising.

Roger Jenkins, who as former head of Middle East was the “gatekeeper” of Barclays’ relationship with Qatar, is standing trial over his role in helping negotiate £4bn of emergency funding from Qatar into the bank which helped it avoid a state bailout during the 2008 financial crisis.

On Monday Mr Jenkins told a London court that Qatar was demanding an additional 1.75 per cent fee on top of the 1.5 per cent commission fee paid to all investors who took part in its June 2008 capital raising.

The Serious Fraud Office alleges that Mr Jenkins and two other bankers negotiated secret side deals — known as advisory services agreements — with Qatar for the additional commission as it injected emergency funding into Barclays. The three men all deny wrongdoing.

Mr Jenkins’ defence has been that Barclays was getting genuine services from Qatar, potentially worth billions of pounds, by striking the side deals to expand Barclays’ business in the Middle East. This was seen as a solution to the additional money demanded by the Qataris.

On Monday, Mr Jenkins was cross-examined by SFO prosecutor Ed Brown QC about why no one at Barclays had immediately come up with the idea for an advisory services agreement with Qatar if such an agreement “was so honest and a great advantage to Barclays”.

“I’m clearly not that clever,” Mr Jenkins replied. He added: “I am a very experienced banker, I have a moral compass. I did not think about an advisory services agreement and nor did anyone else . . . It was only in the context we had with the Qataris where I could see it would cost them not a cent to do it,” he said. However he said that he and colleagues “wrestled” with the “optics” of how such an agreement would look to other investors.

Mr Jenkins told the court that when the idea of an advisory services agreement was proposed on June 11 2008 there were suggestions it could include introductions to the bank and co-investments. “I jumped at this, it was a great opportunity, who wouldn’t want that opportunity?” he said, and added: “I had no reason to doubt the money you could make from Qatar was very, very, very substantial.”

Mr Jenkins is on trial alongside ex-colleagues Tom Kalaris, who ran Barclays’ wealth unit, and Richard Boath, the former co-head of Barclays’ investment bank’s financial services group. All three deny fraud charges. The trial continues.

Impossible Foods to introduce imitation ground pork and sausage, including patty for Burger King

After biting into the U.S. burger business, plant-based food makers are targeting pork.

Impossible Foods Inc. said Monday that it will introduce imitation ground pork and sausage, including a patty for a new sandwich at dozens of Burger King restaurants later this month. Rival Beyond Meat Inc. BYND -1.09% last year began supplying plant-based sausage to Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc., DNKN -0.73% Carl’s Jr. and Tim Hortons restaurants, mainly for breakfast sandwiches.

Impossible, Beyond and other meat-alternative developers say their products spare livestock and are better for the environment than meat because they require less grain, water and fuel to produce. The companies first worked on beef because they said it is one of the most environmentally intensive meats to produce. Pork is the world’s most widely consumed meat, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. Plant-based food makers are also developing chicken and seafood alternatives.

“Pork being the ubiquitous meat it is felt like the natural way to continue our mission,” David Lee, Impossible’s chief financial officer, said in an interview

Meat-free burgers, sausages and nuggets represent a fraction of overall meat consumption. But their sales are growing much faster than those of traditional meat. Cases of plant-based proteins shipped to commercial restaurants from broadline food distributors increased by 23% in the year ending in November, according to market-research firm NPD Group. Restaurants say the products have helped boost traffic and buzz.

That growth has drawn pushback from livestock producers. Farm groups have urged regulators to block the use of words like “meat” and “pork” to describe plant-based imitations, arguing that consumers could be misled about their contents.

Impossible’s pork alternative is made from soy, coconut oil and starch by the same processes used to make the Impossible Burger that is now sold in 17,000 restaurants. Soy leghemoglobin, the protein that Impossible said helps its burgers taste meaty, is a key ingredient in the pork mimic too, Mr. Lee said.

The Impossible product, labeled “pork made from plants,” could draw meat-industry opposition.

“What’s impossible is to make pork from plants. This is a brazen attempt to circumvent decades of food labeling law and centuries of precedence,” said Dr. Dan Kovich, science and technology director for the National Pork Producers Council, a trade group.

Mr. Lee said Impossible’s use of the word pork aligns with U.S. food regulations. “We want meat eaters to understand this can be used just the same way as any pork product,” he said.

Burger King, which like Tim Hortons is owned by Restaurant Brands International Inc., said it would begin testing Impossible’s “pork” sausage on a breakfast sandwich at 139 restaurants in five markets later this month. The “Impossible Croissan’wich” will feature plant-based sausage on a toasted croissant with an egg and cheese. It will sell for the same price, $3.49, as that sandwich with a traditional pork patty. The restaurants will sell the sandwich in Savannah, Ga., Albuquerque, N.M., Montgomery, Ala., Lansing, Mich. and Springfield, Ill., Burger King said.

The Impossible Croissan’wich can help improve performance at breakfast, a meal that accounts for roughly 15% of its sales, said Fernando Machado, Burger King’s chief marketing officer. McDonald’s Corp. makes a bigger chunk of its sales from breakfast, and Wendy’s Co. is introducing a morning menu nationally this year.

The plant-based products are coming to market as the global pork industry is in flux. African swine fever, a disease deadly to pigs but not dangerous to humans, has caused the death and slaughter of tens of millions of hogs in Asia, according to the USDA.

“We felt the pressure of great global demand,” Mr. Lee said. He said Impossible also wants to reach the estimated 2.5 billion people world-wide who don’t eat pork due to dietary and religious restrictions.

Lobbyists have accepted potential new oversight body ahead of a new Digital Services Act

Big Tech companies have urged the EU not to hold them legally liable for all the content on their platforms, but accepted that their efforts to remove illegal and harmful activity might require oversight from a new bloc-level watchdog.

Lobbyists representing the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter have written to the European Commission as it draws up a Digital Services Act to set out rules for the technology sector.

There has been growing pressure for Silicon Valley executives to be made personally accountable for illegal material on their platforms and for tech groups to face greater scrutiny over how they police content.

Until now, the EU has allowed platforms to regulate themselves for illegal material in everything except terrorist content, and not to be held legally liable for illegal content — such as hate speech or videos of child sex abuse — of which they are unaware.

The letter, from Edima, argued that both self-regulation and limited liability should continue but that “a new approach might require some form of oversight to ensure it is effective”.

The lobbyists warned that making companies liable for all content on their platforms would lead to punishments for companies that tried, proactively, to uncover illegal material.

Such rules would create “a perverse incentive whereby companies are discouraged from taking action before being made aware of the existence of illegal content, for fear of incurring additional liability”, said Siada El Ramly, director-general of Edima.

Thierry Breton, the European commissioner charged with overseeing the digital economy, has already said that the EU would not seek to remove or water down limited liability for tech companies. “We will not touch it,” he said, at his confirmation hearings before the EU parliament.

But senior officials have privately warned since then that the DSA is still being debated, that it is too soon to rule out any outcomes and that the process is bound to be “messy”. In October, an EU official called the DSA “a bulldozer which will take five years” to agree.

In 2013, Brussels looked to introduce new rules on how platforms should process complaints from users on illegal material but ditched plans after internal disagreement and political pressure. Two years later it launched a consultation on limited liabilities for platforms but that did not lead to a change in the law.

In September, Werner Stengg, former head of the European Commission’s ecommerce and platforms unit, said officials and companies were still unclear about the rules designed to secure the removal of illegal online content.

“Illegal content is not sufficiently addressed. No one knows what is hosted on online platforms, what content is not removed; we don’t know the scale of the problem,” he said.