The SIB has also been investigating the trade in copper in liaison with

The SIB has also been investigating the trade in copper in liaison with the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).Enquiries may be redoubled into the scandal that hit Chile's state copper giant Codelco in 1995 when it lost $170m on unauthorised LME trading. Its top dealer has denied fraud charges.Mr Akiyama, referring to Hamanaka's secret book, said it recorded trades which were about twice the amount a year shown in official paperwork Mr Hamanaka processed for the company.Sumitomo's annual copper trading volume in 1995 was $9.4 bn, the Asahi Shimbun said.Mr Akiyama said Sumitomo only learned of what was going on when Hamanaka confessed on 5 June to his rogue trading and showed company officials the secret book. Mr Akiyama said the trader was able to get away with his unauthorised dealings for so long because papers from banks he used in his trading transactions, which should have been sent to the company's financial department, were instead sent directly to Mr Hamanaka.The company was only fully alerted to Mr Hamanaka's activities when bank documents meant for the trader were mistakenly sent to the company's financial department, the Asahi said.. Sock Shop, Red or Dead and Contessa, three subsidiaries in the failed Facia stores group, have been sold by receivers, helping to save more than 1,000 jobs. The sales, announced yesterday, follow a separate purchase by Carlton International, the luggage manufacturer, of branches of Salisbury's, another part of Facia's former empire. About 75 outlets in the Sock Shop chain, employing 500 staff, are being sold for a "substantial" but undisclosed sum to Jumper, a UK retail chain based in Carnforth, Lancashire. About a dozen shops were not included in the sale.Red or Dead, one of the UK's leading fashion chains, has been sold back to its founders and former owners, Wayne and Gerardine Hemmingway, preserving more than 100 jobs.Contessa, the UK's largest specialist lingerie retailer, is being acquired by Chancerealm Group, owned by Theo Phaphitis.

The deal safeguards some 400 jobs in 80 of the 120 outlets being sold.Fifteen months ago Mr Phaphitis bought the Ryman stationery chain from KPMG, which was acting as receivers to the failed Pentos Group.Tony Thompson, of accountants KPMG, lead receiver to Facia, said: "We have kept the stores open in the belief that this was vital to preserving the businesses. We have now been able to sell the bulk of the Facia stores in receivership and thereby save nearly 1,100 jobs."We only finished the negotiations late on Saturday evening after a long day of talks. We are very pleased to have saved so many jobs and preserve such well-known High Street names."Fellow receivers Grant Thornton said on Saturday that Carlton International had bought 52 branches of the Salisbury's handbag, costume jewellery and suitcase chain for an undisclosed sum.KPMG said that the purchase - a week after Swiss-based Mister Minit snapped up 39 stores - brought the total number of Salisbury shops sold to 91, with Grant Thornton still seeking buyers for around 80 more.Grant Thornton said it understood that Carlton International intended to keep all 300 staff in the shops concerned, along with the Salisbury's name.Grant Thornton partner Maurice Withall said: "We still have a number of offers of interest in the remaining stores and we will be entering into discussions with the interested parties next week."Mr Thompson added that KPMG expected to sell Oakland, the men's fashionwear chain, by the middle of this week and also hoped to find a buyer for Torq, the jewellery business."We have now sold the bulk of the Facia Group retail outlets and it appears likely that secured creditors will be paid in full," he said.. Insurers preparing for a pounds 10bn boom in sales of long-term care policies to the elderly are set to confound the Government by opposing its plans not to impose tight regulation on the industry. Despite claims by Stephen Dorrell, the Health Minister, that controls would "inhibit innovation and the development of new products", insurers said yesterday they wanted long-term care to be brought under the Financial Services Act. The Association of British Insurers, which had previously opposed tougher regulation, is due to issue its own proposals this week.A spokesman said yesterday: "We have decided that the sale of such products should be controlled under the FSA."David Robinson, head of sales and marketing at Scottish Provident, said: "We believe strongly that the public must be reassured that legislation governing any form of partnership arrangement [between the Government and insurers] has been thought out thoroughly before it is introduced." He added that selling of such plans should be regulated by the Personal Investment Authority, the financial watchdog.Legal & General and Prudential, two of Britain's leading insurers, also said they were in favour of effective regulation of the market.Research by Munich Re, a leading insurer, said last month that the market for long-term care products could be worth up to pounds 10bn a year. Sales of home-income plans, where homeowners surrender part of the equity in their home in return for a guaranteed income in old age, could be worth up to pounds 100bn, some estimates suggest.The insurers' initiative in calling for tough regulation is aimed at preventing a repeat of the pensions scandal, in which 1.5 million people were wrongly advised to buy a personal pension.The proposal to boost the merits of private cover follows increasing anger among many elderly people and their children that they are being forced to sell off their only assets to fund the costs of care.Last month, Mr Dorrell issued a consultation paper, in which the Department of Health proposes that for each pounds 1-worth of cover bought by a policyholder, local authorities will disregard pounds 1.50 of assets when means-testing elderly people for long-term care.When added to the pounds 10,000 in assets disregarded by the authority when means-testing individuals, a one-off premium of pounds 7,000 might allow a person to protect a house worth pounds 60,000 from having to be sold before the council has to help out.However, the Government said last month that it felt there was little need to regulate the new industry because this was likely to stifle innovation and competition.Consumer groups have argued that without controls on how they are sold, long-term care policies could be targeted at vulnerable people, who may be frightened into taking out the wrong plan.. Lord Hollick, chief executive of United News & Media has decreed an "open-plan" office on the eighth floor of United's Blackfriars headquarters, although the Labour peer has kept a private office for himself.

The new layout is aimed at creating what one insider calls an "open and accessible environment" at United, reminiscent of the offices of the old MAI, Lord Hollick's media and financial services company, which earlier this year merged with United. Significantly, Lord Stevens, United's chairman, remains in his palatial office on the ninth floor, fuelling speculation that the Tory peer is no longer calling the shots at United, owners of the Express titles, regional newspapers and a conference division.The new arrangements strike some insiders as the confirmation of Lord Hollick's growing power at United, and the increasing isolation of the Lord Stevens, who ran the newspaper group for 15 years.Within the management area, which takes up half the eighth floor, executives are free to roam, and have access to all areas save the private offices of Lord Hollick and his senior staff. However, there is what one insider calls a "ring of steel" around the open area, as a way of securing confidential documents.It was within this space that United's highly secretive plans to bid for the television rights to the Premier League were finalised. The project, which included a proposal to offer a range of digital television services, has now been shelved, following the deal reached between the league and BSkyB earlier this month.Says a senior United executive: "There are really two theories about security and confidentiality. Some companies just lock all confidential material in safe in the chief executive's office. We prefer to have a more open environment, at least for the senior people."Beyond its significance as an indication of relations between the two peers, the open-plan concept is at the heart of a raging debate in management consultancy circles about corporate efficiency. According to one school, much influenced by US experience, the open plan encourages more communication, a flatter, more efficient management structure and less friction between various layers of management.

Other experts argue, however, that executives need private space in order to concentrate.One US advertising agency has no private offices at all - nor even any desks. Staff are equipped with lightweight portable phones, and can make use of couches and tables spread out in the open space.Media companies in the UK are more likely than most to have an open-plan environment - influenced, perhaps, by the layout of most newspapers, where only the very senior staff have private offices. Capital Radio, which is moving from its cramped headquarters in Euston Road to Leceister Square, is considering using an open-plan system, at least for most managers. But Chrysalis, for instance, which owns radio station Heart 102, has stuck with the traditional layout.. Andrew Tuckey, deputy chairman of Barings when it crashed last year, is being asked to head up the investment banking arm of Credit Lyonnais. Jean Peyrelavade, chairman of the French bank and a close friend of Tuckey, is keen to hire the corporate financier to spearhead Credit Lyonnais Capital Markets's expansion in London. It is unclear whether Tuckey is willing to take the job - he was not available for comment yesterday - and it is also unclear how his banking peers would regard the move if he did.