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French lender BNP Paribas (BNP.PA) announced on Monday that it had signed an agreement to buy HSBC's private banking arm in Germany.

BNP said it expected this deal to close during the second quarter of 2025 and that it would bring the bank's assets under management to more than €40bn (￡33.4m).

HSBC shares were up more than 1% on Monday morning, while BNP Paribas was down nearly 3%.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported on Sunday that HSBC's exposure to defaulted commercial property loans in Hong Kong had risen by nearly six times in the first half of this year to more than $3.2bn.

The report highlighted how the downturn in commercial property in Hong Kong was starting to impact banks.

A spokesperson for HSBC had not replied to Yahoo Finance UK's request for a response at the time of writing.

Reeves says: "We want that money back," earning her some applause after laying out plans to address corruption in Covid spending.

She also said that the government will aim to cut spending on consultancies in half, compared to what the previous government had spent.

The recovery is "steeper and harder than we expected," says Reeves in her conference speech, speaking again of ￡22bn undisclosed spending plans by the previous government.

"If not tackled now, will pose risks for years to come," she adds.

Reeves hammering the point home that the party won’t put political expediency over difficult decisions.

The Chancellor has taken to the stage for her Labour conference speech

There's an apparent payments issue affecting some UK banks. A note on Nationwide's website cites an "industry issue" for incoming and outgoing payments. Meanwhile, reports of outages at Halifax, Santander and Barclays spiked in the last couple of hours.

Yahoo Finance has reached out to Nationwide, Santander and Barclays for more information and will update in due course.

Yahoo Finance UK's Vicky McKeever writes:

Rupert Murdoch-backed property firm REA Group (REA.AX) has made a third offer to buy UK housing portal Rightmove (RMV.L), upping its bid to ￡6.1bn.

In a statement on the London Stock Exchange on Monday, Rightmove said its board would "carefully consider" this increased offer.

Rightmove chair Andrew Fisher said: "Based on the implied value and structure of REA's first and second indicative non-binding proposals, we considered these proposals to be uncertain, highly opportunistic and unattractive. Accordingly, the Board unanimously rejected them."

He said the company's board would "respond to the most recent proposal in due course."

Owen Wilson, CEO of REA, said in a statement on the Australian Securities Exchange that the company's increased offer "provides a combination of immediate value certainty in cash and at the same time gives Rightmove shareholders an increasing opportunity in core digital property and adjacencies where we have much expertise."

"We are genuinely disappointed at the lack of engagement by Rightmove's board and we strongly encourage the Rightmove board to engage," he added.

Rightmove shares were up nearly 3% on Monday morning, while REA closed its session on the Australian market nearly 3% lower.

Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "While this will certainly be very encouraging for some [Rightmove] investors, who had seen the value of their holdings plummet from highs reached in January 2022, there is likely to be a push among others to hold out for an even better deal."

The pace of growth has slowed for UK business activity in September, according to the latest PMI reading, coming in at 52.9. August hit 53.8.

Meanwhile, price inflation across the private sector economy eased to a 42-month low in September. A weaker rise in prices charged by service providers more than offset an acceleration in factory gate price inflation.

However, there were still signs of elevated cost pressures in September. The overall rate of input price inflation picked up since August, driven by higher wages and shipping costs, S&P said.

Manufacturing production increased at a slightly faster pace than services activity, though both sectors saw a slower upturn than in the previous month. Where higher levels of output were reported, survey respondents mostly commented on rising customer demand and improving domestic economic conditions.

Meanwhile, fragile client confidence and ongoing inventory cutbacks were cited as headwinds to growth in September.

Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said:

At Yahoo Finance UK we're wishing the disastrous Truss mini-budget a happy two-year birthday. The pound (GBPUSD=X) seems to be celebrating, too, with a 0.5% dip against the dollar following a 30-month high.

Our reporter Pedro Goncalves writes:

READ MORE HERE

Here's LiveSquawk with the raw PMI data:

The latest PMI numbers coming out of the Eurozone have revealed the first pullback in business activity in seven months. The headline number for the composite PMI output index showed a reading of 48.9. Anything below 50 indicates contraction.

S&P Global said new business decreased at the sharpest pace since January.

With new orders and volumes of outstanding business falling at sharper rates and business confidence at a 10-month low, companies scaled back their workforce numbers for the second month running. Meanwhile, demand weakness resulted in slower inflation of both input costs and output prices.

The reduction in overall business activity was driven by a deepening downturn in the eurozone manufacturing sector, where production decreased for the 18th month running and at the fastest pace in the year-to-date. Although services business activity continued to rise, the latest expansion was only marginal and the weakest since February.

On a regional basis, after an Olympics-related boost to business activity in August, output in the French private sector returned to contraction in September, joining Germany where the pace of decline in activity was the most pronounced since February. The rest of the euro area saw output rise again at the end of the third quarter, although the pace of expansion was only modest and the softest since January.

Dr Cyrus de la Rubia, chief economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank, said:

As the Labour party conference kicks off in Liverpool, chancellor Rachel Reeves spoke on the Radio 4 Today show ahead of her conference speech.

She said the government wants to "set out the prize" of strong growth ahead, but stressed tough choices must be made about the economy. Labour has the task of being honest about the state of public finances while also being "pro-growth" and "pro-business", she added, highlighting policies that were laid out as the party took office this summer, including pensions reform and a national wealth fund.

Reiterating previous promises, she said there would be "no return to austerity" and "real terms increases to government spending in this parliament".

It is thought in her speech today she will try to send and uplifting message, despite the fact that "everybody knows our public finances aren't in great shape".

Chinese stocks wobbled on Monday, while Japanese markets were closed, as traders digested a surprise decision by China's central bank to lower its 14-day repo rate by 0.1%. The bank has not moved to cut longer term rates yet.

Teh Hang Seng (^HSI) fell slightly, while the SSE Composite (000001.SS) gained 0.4%.

US stock futures are slightly higher in premarket trade.

From our US team:

US stocks closed mixed on Friday as rate-cut euphoria faded, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) managed to stay above the 42,000 level again to eke out another record close.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 0.2% after the benchmark index ended at an all-time high on Thursday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) closed down 0.4%.

Despite Friday's muted action, the major averages closed out the week with gains. Much of those increases stemmed from Thursday's market surge as investors embraced Chair Jerome Powell's message that the Federal Reserve made a big interest rate cut to support the economy, not to save it — an idea bolstered by jobless claims data.

That roaring rally sputtered on Friday amid reminders that risks to growth could still lie ahead. Wall Street is still wondering whether the Fed has fallen behind in keeping the economy on track for a "soft landing." Traders are pricing in deeper cuts this year than policymakers' "dot plot" projects, per fed funds futures.

Hello from London. It's another week and we've got a few things to look forward to. The Labour Party conference kicks off today and might give some clues as to what will appear in the Autumn budget — we're told chancellor Rachel Reeves is going to try to "inject some optimism" amid gloomy data.

Also today: UK, European and US PMIs and the CBI industrial trends survey.

Let's get to it.