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Toyota Motor Corp is hitching its future to green cars, investing billions of dollars in gasoline-electric hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles, but for now its record profit performance is being powered largely by a gas-guzzling U.S. market. In the United States, relatively cheap gasoline prices helped to spur brisk 9 percent growth in industry-wide light truck sales in the first half of the year, making that one of the fastest-growing major global market segments - accounting for about one-tenth of global vehicle sales. Toyota outperformed the overall U.S. market, moreover, with its fresh model line-up - the Highlander SUV was redesigned in February and the Tundra pick-up got a facelift last September - powering a 10 percent rise in its January-June U.S. light truck sales to nearly half a million vehicles. That success is feeding the nearly $40 billion cash pile that Toyota will tap for future green car investments. "The U.S. is one of the few bright spots contributing to year-o

Portugal's central bank said on Sunday it decided to rescue troubled lender Banco Espirito Santo in a 4.9 billion euro recapitalisation to be pumped into the healthy part of the bank that will be separated from its compromised assets. _0"> The money comes mostly from the country's international bailout, which had a 6.4 billion euro line available for bank recapitalisation, via a bank resolution fund set up by Portugal in 2012, Bank of Portugal Governor Carlos Costa said. Current shareholders in BES and holders of subordinated debt will be responsible for the risks in the "bad bank" mainly associated the crumbling business empire of the bank's founding Espirito Santo family. (Reporting By Andrei Khalip; Editing by Sandra Maler )

The European Commission said on Sunday that Portugal's planned 4.9 billion euro ($6.58 billion) rescue of Banco Espirito Santo (BES) was in line with EU state aid rules. _0"> "The adoption of this resolution measure is adequate to restore confidence in financial stability and to ensure the continuity of services and avoid potential adverse systemic effects," the Commission said in a statement. The Commission said a disorderly resolution of BES could have created a serious disturbance in the Portugues economy and that the creation of a temporary credit institution, holding deposits, senior debt and most of the assets, was a suitable remedy. To limit market distortions, the latter's new business would be limited, it said. ($1 = 0.7450 Euros) (Reporting By Philip Blenkinsop)

Australia's Treasury Wine Estates said on Monday it had received a revised conditional takeover bid from Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co LP and Rhone Capital LLC and would grant the bidders access for due diligence. _0"> Treasury said KKR had raised its bid by 10.6 percent to A$5.20 per share from the A$4.70 it offered in April, now valuing the world's second-largest winemaker at A$3.38 billion ($3.15 billion). Treasury shares closed at A$4.95 on Friday. ($1 = 1.0747 Australian Dollars) (Reporting by Lincoln Feast ; Editing by Sandra Maler )

French telecoms firm Iliad will be hard-pressed to meet its goal of generating $2 billion in additional annual operating profit at T-Mobile US Inc by cutting costs and slashing prices if its takeover bid is accepted, analysts said. Iliad, which in recent years has shaken up the French mobile market with cheap subscriber plans, bid $15 billion last week for a 56.6 percent stake in T-Mobile, the No. 4 U.S. mobile operator. The Paris-based company, majority owned by billionaire founder Xavier Niel, said a merger would result in $10 billion in synergies and an additional $2 billion in annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). It would hit those targets by running T-Mobile, majority owned by Deutsche Telekom AG, in an "Iliad-like" way, sources familiar with the takeover bid told Reuters. Even if successful in its takeover bid, Iliad faces significant obstacles in reaching those cost savings and negotiating better deals with U.S. cellul

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co LP has raised its bid for Australia's Treasury Wine Estates to $3.15 billion, the world's No.2 winemaker said on Monday, adding it would grant the private equity giant access for due diligence. Treasury said KKR and Rhone Capital LLC had raised their bid by 10.6 percent to A$5.20 per share from the A$4.70 offered in April. Treasury, which owns the Penfolds, Wolfblass and Beringer brands, rejected that bid as too low in May after KKR began approaching investors directly. "The board of TWE, together with its advisers, has concluded, based on the revised proposal, that it is in the interests of its shareholders to engage further with KKR and Rhone," Treasury said in a statement. It would allow the bidders to conduct "non-exclusive due diligence" subject to a confidentiality agreement. Treasury shares closed at A$4.95 on Friday. Treasury's shares have fallen from an all-time high of A$6.43 a year ago amid slashed earn

Portugal will spend 4.9 billion euros ($6.58 billion) to rescue its largest listed bank, testing the euro zone's resilience to another banking crisis just months after Lisbon exited an international bailout. The rescue of Banco Espirito Santo, which was unveiled after a frenzied weekend of discussions between Portuguese and European Union officials, comes after weeks of increasingly bad news about the financial state of the lender, particularly its exposure to a cascade of companies headed by its founding Espirito Santo family. Under the plan, Banco Espirito Santo, or BES, will be split into a "good bank", renamed Novo Banco, and a "bad bank", which will house BES's exposures to the troubled Espirito Santo business empire, which last week tipped the bank in to a record 3.6 billion euros loss. The bad bank's losses will be born by the bank's junior bondholders and shareholders, including the Espirito Santo family, which has a 20 percent stake, and

The following are the top stories in the Financial Times. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. _0"> Headlines France urges G20 to put issue of U.S. bank fines on agenda ( on.ft.com/1o4kgPh ) Private equity firms mull merger of older GSK, Sanofi brands ( on.ft.com/1oo8n5j ) Banco Espirito Santo to be split in 4.9 bln euro rescue ( on.ft.com/1skvDD1 ) London warned of big threat to jobs if UK quits EU ( on.ft.com/1qTkpHo ) Quindell's deal with UK roadside rescue business RAC stalls _0"> ( on.ft.com/1nijGao ) _1"> _2"> Overview _3"> _4"> France has gathered support of other European nations to challenge U.S. regulators on their right to levy heavy fines on foreign banks at a G20 meeting later this year, following the record fine imposed on BNP Paribas last month. _5"> _6"> Private equity firms, including KKR and Warburg Pincus, are mulling over a $10 billio

The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. _0"> The Times EX-M&S BOSS POISED FOR PEERAGE The former boss of Marks and Spencer is being lined up for a peerage. Stuart Rose, who chairs the online supermarket Ocado and the clothing brand Fat Face ( id="symbol_IPO-FFFL.L_0"> IPO-FFFL.L ), is expected to be ennobled by the Conservative party within days. MPC REBELS SET TO BREAK BANK CONSENSUS ON INTEREST RATES The Bank of England's longest consensus on interest rates could end this week when a minority of monetary policy committee members are expected to vote for a rate rise. The Guardian INEOS SIGNALS MOVE INTO FRACKING Ineos, the company at the centre of a dispute with unions at the Grangemouth plant in Scotland last year, is giving the strongest signal yet of its intention to move into the controversial area of fracking. The Tele

Portugal will spend 4.9 billion euros ($6.58 billion) to rescue its largest listed bank, testing the euro zone's resilience to another banking crisis just months after Lisbon exited an international bailout. The rescue of Banco Espirito Santo, which was unveiled after a frenzied weekend of discussions between Portuguese and European Union officials, comes after weeks of increasingly bad news about the financial state of the lender, particularly its exposure to a cascade of companies headed by its founding Espirito Santo family. Under the plan, Banco Espirito Santo, or BES, will be split into a "good bank", renamed Novo Banco, and a "bad bank", which will house BES's exposures to the troubled Espirito Santo business empire as well as its Angolan subsidiary. The bad bank's losses will be born by the bank's junior bondholders and shareholders, including the Espirito Santo family, which has a 20 percent stake, and French bank Credit Agricole which ow

Australia's Treasury Wine Estates is opening its books to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co LP after the private equity giant hiked its takeover offer to $3.15 billion, raising the prospect of a bidding war for the world's No.2 winemaker. Treasury, which rejected a $2.9 billion unsolicited bid from KKR LLC in April, said the 10.6 percent rise in the offer price meant it was now "in the interests of shareholders to engage further." Asia's growing appetite for wine, the value of Treasury's Penfolds label and an ongoing restructuring are helping turn perceptions of the company's prospects around after a horror 2013 saw profits slump 38 percent in the six months to February. China's Bright Food Group Co Ltd, France's Pernod Ricard and the world's biggest wine maker, U.S.-based Constellation Brands Inc, have all been mooted as potential buyers of Treasury. "Absolutely there are (rival bidders), they've now kind of set a starting point

Fears of further declines on Wall Street kept Asian shares mostly on the defensive on Monday, with concerns over geopolitical tensions eclipsing U.S. data that argued against an earlier start to the Federal Reserve's rate-tightening cycle. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan managed to gain 0.4 percent, largely as Chinese shares continued to rally on signs that economy was regaining momentum after a spate of stimulus measures. But Japan's Nikkei average hit a one-week low and investors were cautious in most developed markets after the U.S. S&P 500 lost 2.7 percent last week, its biggest weekly decline in more than two years to hit two-month lows. European shares were expected to edge up slightly after their steep fall last week, with spreadbetters see France's CAC40 rising as much as 0.4 percent and Britain's FTSE up to 0.2 percent. European shares led the losses last week, with German shares falling 4.5 percent, pummelled by concer

Paul Parker, the former global head of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) at Barclays Plc, has joined Goldman Sachs Group Inc as co-chairman of its mergers and acquisitions division, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs said on Sunday. _0"> Parker is one of the world's most accomplished M&A bankers, having recently advised Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc on its roughly $50 billion bid for Botox maker Allergan Inc and Comcast Corp on a $42 billion takeover of rival cable group Time Warner Cable Inc. Parker, a Lehman Brothers veteran who left Barclays in May, is expected to assume his new role in the next couple of weeks, the Goldman Sachs spokesman said, confirming an earlier report in the Financial Times. Jack Levy and Tim Ingrassia will continue in their roles as co-chairmen of mergers and acquisitions and share that title with Parker, who is expected to handle some of the investment bank's most important client relationships. Gene Sykes and Gregg Lemkau

Australian gaming mogul James Packer is taking another crack at the lucrative U.S. casino market, with his Crown Resorts Ltd buying a vacant site on the famous Las Vegas Strip. Crown has established a joint-venture resort company to develop the site with former Wynn Las Vegas president Andrew Pascal, with financial backing from U.S. private equity firm Oaktree Capital Management. "You can't be in the gaming industry and not have a special reverence for Las Vegas - that's where it all began," Packer said in a statement. "As we have built Crown Resorts into a thriving international company with successful casino ventures in Australia, Macau, and London, we've always kept our eye on Las Vegas." Packer scrapped plans to develop a $5 billion casino in Las Vegas with private equity partner York Capital Management in 2008 as the global financial crisis crunched the credit market, with Crown writing off A$44 million in the process. Crown also lost money on

These are some of the leading stories in Hong Kong newspapers on Monday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. _0"> SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST -- More foreign carmakers are expected to cut prices under pressure from anti-monopoly investigations by mainland regulators, with market forces expected to play a bigger role in pricing as competition intensifies. ( bit.ly/WVgkFg ) -- Seven patients who underwent medical procedures in Hong Kong in the first quarter of the year had surgical objects left inside their bodies, the most since 2010, according to new figures revealed by the Hospital Authority. The items included a 12 cm drainage tube left in a patient's abdomen and a 4.5 cm catheter tip left in a kidney. ( bit.ly/1tIsQFw ) -- The stock through train has already helped boost turnover and profitability at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, according to brokers. HKEx, which will report its results on Wednesday, is expected to chalk

Local government officials in China repeatedly warned a car parts factory that was rocked by a deadly blast over the weekend that high levels of dust could spark an explosion, the South China Morning Post newspaper reported on Monday. _0"> The blast at the Kunshan Zhongrong Metal Products Co Ltd factory in the city of Kunshan on Saturday killed at least 71 people and injured more than 180. A preliminary investigation suggested it was triggered when a flame was lit in a dust-filled room, the local government said at a news conference on Saturday, describing the incident as a serious safety breach. The company had ignored prior warnings about dust, an unidentified official at the Kunshan Administration of Work Safety told the newspaper. Neither Kunshan officials nor executives from Kunshan Zhongrong could be reached for comment. Based about an hour's drive from Shanghai, Kunshan Zhongrong polishes wheel hubs for automakers including General Motors Co . The blast is Chi

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe touted the success of his economic policies on a visit to Brazil on Friday and said it was time for the two nations to expand their trade and investment partnership. On the first visit to Brazil in a decade by a Japanese prime minister, Japanese banks extended $700 million in loans to boost Brazilian soy and corn exports to Japan and help finance oil platform construction for Brazil's growing offshore oil industry. Abe told Brazilian business leaders that Japan has closed a 15-year deflation cycle since his stimulus policies began to kick in and there is great potential to expand trade and investment with Latin America's biggest economy. "With Japan growing again, we can grow with other nations," he said in comments to executives translated by an interpreter. "Japanese companies are eyeing Brazil with great expectations," he said later at a deal-signing meeting with President Dilma Rousseff. Brazil's state-run

Botox maker Allergan Inc on Friday accused rival Valeant Pharmaceuticals International and billionaire investor William Ackman of violating securities laws by using insider information as they prepared a takeover bid for the drug company. In a civil lawsuit filed in federal court in California, Allergan said Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management and Valeant "hatched" an "improper and illicit insider-trading scheme" that allowed the hedge fund to buy Allergan shares, knowing about Valeant's planned $51 billion takeover bid. Valeant and Pershing Square said the complaint was intended to prevent them from calling a special meeting of Allergan shareholders to vote on their board nominees. "This is a shameless attempt by Allergan to delay the shareholders' fundamental right to call a special meeting," Ackman said in a statement. "Allergan's determination to waste money on a baseless lawsuit against its largest shareholder further

Wall Street's worst week in two years was enough to get investors worried about whether a long-overdue correction is coming, but analysts are still leaning bullish. The S&P 500 ended the week down 2.7 percent, its biggest weekly loss since June 2012, a decline that had followed several weeks of selling. The market is undoubtedly ripe for a correction - the current rally has continued for nearly three years without a decline of more than 10 percent. The Fed looks closer to raising rates, and housing and auto sales figures suggest those markets may be softening, if only temporarily. "The summer has been just tough because there has been very little to buy," said Kathleen Gaffney, portfolio manager of the Eaton Vance Bond Fund. "But I think what is happening is we are seeing the markets adjusting from an environment of lower interest rates to higher interest rates – and that's producing volatility." The Federal Reserve's monetary policy has been f

Deutsche Bank will seek compensation from former chief executive Rolf Breuer for a costly out-of-court settlement reached earlier this year with the heirs of the Kirch media empire, according to a report in the newspaper Die Welt. _0"> The bank's supervisory board this week decided to seek compensation from Breuer, the newspaper reported, adding that the bank still expected to pay most of the settlement itself. "The large part of the settlement will definitely stay stuck with the bank," the paper said, quoting a person familiar with the supervisory board discussions. A Deutsche Bank spokesman declined to comment on the report. Attempts to contact a spokesman for Breuer were unsuccessful. Deutsche needs to seek compensation from Breuer before so-called directors and officers' liability insurance can play a role in covering some of the settlement charges, the paper said. In February, Deutsche Bank ended a 12-year battle with the heirs of media mogul Leo K

Trustees involved in JPMorgan Chase & Co's ( id="symbol_JPM.N_0"> JPM.N ) proposed $4.5 billion settlement with investors in money-losing mortgage bonds accepted the bank's offer on Friday for the vast majority of the trusts holding the securities. The trustees rejected the deal for six of about 330 trusts included in the offer, according to a notice posted on a website run by the trustees. Twenty seven trusts obtained an extension until Oct. 1 for one or more loan groups. JPMorgan reached the $4.5 billion agreement in November with 21 institutional investors in 330 residential mortgage-backed securities trusts issued by JPMorgan and Bear Stearns, which the bank took over during the financial crisis. One of the trusts was later excluded from the deal. The settlement would resolve claims over misrepresentations in the quality of mortgages packaged into securities before the collapse of the U.S. housing market. The trustees, who included Bank of New York M

Growth in China's services sector slipped to a six-month low in July as new orders rose at their weakest rate in at least a year, data showed, taking some of the shine off an industry that has been a bright spot in the Chinese economy this year. _0"> The official Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for the non-manufacturing sector slowed to 54.2 in July from June's 55, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Sunday. That is the weakest reading since January. A reading above 50 in PMI surveys indicates an expansion in activity while one below the threshold points to a contraction. The slight retreat in the services sector came at a time when China's factories have started to recover, having earlier this year been one of the drags on growth in the world's second largest economy due to faltering demand at home and abroad. In contrast, China's services companies have held up through each slowdown since PMI records began in January 2007, with the index

After the Federal Reserve maintained its path towards raising U.S. interest rates next year, other major central banks will jostle for space on a crowded stage this week. The European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, Bank of England and the central banks of India and Australia all hold meetings. While imminent action is unlikely, the time when policy settings start pointing in different directions is nearing. U.S. growth rebounded in the second quarter and the Fed upgraded its assessment of the economy last week. It is on course to stop creating money in October but the expectation is that there will be no interest rate rise before mid-2015. That puts the Bank of England in pole position to be the first major central bank to push rates up from their record low 0.5 percent, perhaps before the year is out. Although the UK economy is expanding at an annualized clip in excess of 3 percent and unemployment is tumbling, the absence of wage pressure means there is no immediate reason to act

German regulators have intensified investigations into Deutsche Bank in an effort to resolve a long-running, industry-wide investigation into possible efforts to manipulate benchmark interest rates, magazine Der Spiegel said on Sunday. _0"> The latest initiative aims to determine when co-Chief Executive Anshu Jain first learned of possible attempts to manipulate benchmark rates such as Libor at Deutsche Bank and in the industry in general, the magazine reported. Investigators recently discovered that critical electronic records were destroyed in early 2012, including telephone conversations that took place around the time that Lehman Bros. collapsed in 2008, the magazine said. German regulator Bafin, which has hired auditors Ernst & Young to pursue new lines of query, declined to comment. Deutsche Bank said it was cooperating with regulators and conducting its own probe into possible manipulation of Libor (the London interbank offered rate), a benchmark against which

Early this year, a New York State Lottery winner in Brooklyn approached Morgan Stanley with a problem: he needed to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars before he collected his prize money. The man, a Russian immigrant, wanted money to help move his family to a secure location before he redeemed his ticket and possibly became famous, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He also wanted advice about what to do with his prize money, which was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The bank's wealth management unit decided to make the loan to win a new customer, a step it is increasingly willing to make as it builds up its brokerage unit. Making unusual loans is critical for Morgan Stanley. The bank has bet its future in large part on its wealth management business, which produces more stable revenue than the trading unit that nearly wiped out Morgan Stanley during the financial crisis. Providing unconventional loans is a relia

Wall Street firms led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc are close to buying a stake in chat and instant messaging startup Perzo Inc in pursuit of an alternative to a similar application from Bloomberg LP, sources familiar with Goldman's plans said. Banks are trying to cut costs as sluggish trading volumes and higher regulation weigh on revenues. Bloomberg has dominated messaging on Wall Street for years, but its application is part of a data, trading and news terminal that costs about $20,000 a year. The Perzo applications are free. Several banks and asset managers are considering an investment in Perzo, including Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bank of America Corp, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings PLC, BlackRock Inc and the hedge fund Maverick Capital Ltd, said two sources briefed on the matter who declined to comment publicly. The companies, which have received term sheets for the deal and signed non-disclosure agreements in recent days, either declined to comment or did n

McDonald's Corp CEO Don Thompson sure could use a break. The head of the world's biggest restaurant chain, who for much of his two years at the helm has been battling to spark sales growth in the United States and Europe, got battered by headline-grabbing bad news in late July. In the final days of the month, its China business was hit with a food-safety scare involving a key supplier; the chain got ensnared in the West's sanctions standoff with Russia; burger flippers at U.S. restaurants claimed an incremental win from the National Labor Relations Board in their fight to hold McDonald's responsible for the actions of franchisees; and, a Texas jury slapped the company with a $27 million verdict. Add to all that its results showed second-quarter profit dropped more than expected. "They're under siege on three continents," said Howard Penney, restaurant analyst at Hedgeye Risk Management, an investment research firm. To be sure, the company's famo

HSBC Holdings Plc ( id="symbol_HSBA.L_0"> HSBA.L ) is urging Britain to delay its deadline for new rules forcing lenders to separate routine retail operations from riskier investment banking activities, until the outcome of an industrywide probe, Sky News reported on Sunday citing sources. _0"> HSBC Chairman Douglas Flint has written a letter to UK Chancellor George Osborne and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney requesting a delay to the 2019 timetable for banks to ring-fence their business, Sky quoted sources familiar with the letter's content as saying. ( bit.ly/1o3jfH9 ) UK lawmakers in December gave their final approval to reforms aimed at tackling structural failings at banks, that came to light following the 2007/8 financial crisis and a series of mis-selling and rate-fixing scandals. The main feature of the bill was a rule to force banks to separate their retail and investment activities. Following the government's decision, Britain's co

President Barack Obama said corporate America has done well under his economic policies, telling the Economist magazine that chief executive officers should stop complaining about regulations and show greater social responsibility. "If you look at what's happened over the last four or five years, the folks who don't have a right to complain are the folks at the top," Obama said in an interview conducted last week and posted on the magazine's website late on Saturday. Republicans have sought to portray Obama as anti-business, and businesses have complained that Obama's signature healthcare law and the Dodd-Frank financial reforms have raised costs. Business groups are lobbying against his new plan to curb climate-changing carbon emissions from power plants. "I would take the complaints of the corporate community with a grain of salt," Obama said, arguing that his policies have been friendly to business. "They always complain about regulatio

Toyota Motor Corp ( id="symbol_7203.T_0"> 7203.T ) is hitching its future to green cars, investing billions of dollars in gasoline-electric hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles, but for now its record profit performance is being powered largely by a gas-guzzling U.S. market. In the United States, relatively cheap gasoline prices helped to spur brisk 9 percent growth in industry-wide light truck sales in the first half of the year, making that one of the fastest-growing major global market segments - accounting for about one-tenth of global vehicle sales. Toyota outperformed the overall U.S. market, moreover, with its fresh model line-up - the Highlander SUV was redesigned in February and the Tundra pick-up got a facelift last September - powering a 10 percent rise in its January-June U.S. light truck sales to nearly half a million vehicles. That success is feeding the nearly $40 billion cash pile that Toyota will tap for future green car investments. "The U.S. is one