To overcome these concerns, GWR and Capital have offered to sell Century 106 FM, a Nottingham-based station. So for national advertisers putting together a radio advertising package they are largely complementary, rather than competing, alternatives.”Shares in Capital and GWR soared by 5.7 per cent and 5 per cent respectively, with Capital shares closing at 431.25p and GWR at 254p, as investors expected a speedy conclusion of the £700m merger. Richard Hitchcock at Numis Securities said: “We almost certainly thought it would be referred to the Competition Commission. So rather than later 2005, it is more likely to go through in April, speeding up the revenue growth and cost savings the merger will bring.”The OFT did say, however, that the merger would result in a substantial lessening of competition in the East Midlands. Competition regulators yesterday unexpectedly gave the green light for GWR and Capital Radio to merge, allowing them to create the biggest commercial radio group in the UK.
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said it would not refer the merger to the Competition Commission, as long as some minor conditions were met.

The news caught the City by surprise, as most analysts were expecting a referral, which would have stalled the merger until late 2005.Vincent Smith, of the OFT, said: “Except in the East Midlands, the radio stations of Capital and GWR do not strongly overlap at a local level. Many advisers played down the risks, marketing them as guaranteed. However, most precipice bonds sold between 2000 and 2002 lost investors at least half of their money, due to the severity of the bear market.SEVEN FINES IN SEVEN DAYS22 December – FSA fines Bradford & Bingley £650,000 for mis-selling, and B&B agrees to pay a further £6m in compensation21 December – Axa SunLife is fined £500,000 for misleading advertising21 December – Robert Bonnier and his former employer, Indigo Capital, are fined £290,000 and £65,000 respectively for market abuse20 December – Read Independent Financial Advisers is fined £150,000 for “serious defects” in its sales process16 December – Robin Hutchings fined £18,000 for insider dealing Jason Smith fined £15,000 for passing on inside information. Customers therefore went to the firm with the expectation that it would provide a competent and professional financial advisory service.

However, [B&B's] advisers sold precipice and with-profits bonds without having in place adequate systems and controls to ensure the products sold were suitable.”Last year, Lloyds TSB was fined £1.9m for the mis-selling of precipice bonds, and was ordered to pay a further £98m in compensation. However, the firm failed to pay sufficient attention to these warnings and take adequate action, which put thousands of its customers at risk of financial loss.”During the period in question, [B&B] was the largest [independent financial adviser] in the UK and its brand had widespread public recognition which raised among its customers the expectation that the service it provided to them would be of a high standard. Precipice bonds are investments whose performance is linked to an index or basket of stocks, and which guarantee to pay a certain level of return except in the case where the underlying investment falls by a significant amount, and fails to recover before the bond matures. B&B has agreed to pay £6m in compensation to the 6,800 customers affected, in addition to its fine.As well as criticising B&B for failing to give good advice, the FSA also said it did not keep adequate records of its sales, and did not have inadequate systems and procedures in place to prevent such mis-selling.The FSA said the case was made more serious because B&B had already been warned by the regulator, about the poor quality of its customer records, on a number of occasions from 1998 onwards.Commenting on the fine yesterday, Andrew Procter, the FSA’s director of enforcement, said: “This is a very serious case of mis-selling which was made worse by the fact that Bradford and Bingley had prior warning of the specific concerns about its record keeping. The revision took the annual gain to 5.3 per cent.Martin McMahon, at Lombard Street Research, said: “The corporate sector remains more than willing to invest, a trend that is expected to persist into 2005 as well.”.

The Financial Services Authority continued its Christmas enforcement drive yesterday, landing Bradford & Bingley with a £650,000 fine for the “widespread” mis-selling of precipice and with-profit bonds two years ago. Business investment in Britain rose by a revised 1.0 per cent in the third quarter from the previous quarter, stronger than the 0.1 per cent gain reported a month ago. Kate Barker and Marian Bell were tipped as the two members most likely to have discussed cutting rates.The MPC noted there was a greater risk of world economic activity slowing down than it had seen in the November inflation report despite the fall in oil prices.Given that last week saw surprisingly robust retail sales figures, an increase in earnings growth and a further fall in unemployment, analysts said it may take softer news on the domestic front to convince a majority of members to call for the first rates cut since July 2003.There was a further boost from official figures showing that business investment in the third quarter was stronger than first reported. It’s significant because last week was so positive for UK data.” Rob Carnell, at ING, said the minutes suggested “an easing bias is emerging” for the first time since August 2003.The minutes showed the MPC was worried about recent weaker-than-expected growth in the eurozone and Japan.