PRESS DIGEST - Financial Times =2

ICEBERG RETURNS 29 PERCENT NET IN DEBUT YEAR

The Iceberg Alternative Real Estate Fund, part of a joint venture between CB Richard Ellis and Reech AiM, will on Monday tell investors that it has significantly outperformed the broader market recession in its debut year as one of the first specialist hedge funds in the commercial property market. Despite plummeting property values across the market since summer last year, Iceberg recorded a 29.12 percent return net of fees in the 12 months to May and delivered performance of 4.09 percent in the year to date. "Who said you can't make money in real estate at the moment," said Martin Samworth, managing director for CB Richard Ellis.

BONUS CUTS AT M&S

Marks & Spencer (MKS.L) unveils its annual results on Tuesday and is expected to say that staff across the board will receive cuts to their bonus pay-outs, which amounted to 90 million pounds last year. According to consensus analyst estimates, profits will fall short of the performance targets set a year ago and will be below the one billion pounds mark reached in 1998 under previous management.

BARCLAYS DIRECTORS LOSE MONEY ON BANK'S SHARES

A new report from Digital-Look.com, the financial information website, reveals that directors at the UK's biggest banks have between them lost 3.27 million pounds in the past year from share purchases they have made in their own companies. Three senior executives at Barclays (BARC.L) - Frits Seegers, head of global retail and commercial banking, Bob Diamond, the president, and John Varley, the chief executive - all lost out. Seegers was worst off, seeing the shares worth 1.9 million pounds when he acquired them fall 618,014 thousand pounds in value.

INTERVIEWS LOOM TO FIND JPMORGAN CAZENOVE CHIEF

JPMorgan Cazenove has yet to conduct formal interviews for a new chief executive almost three months after Robert Pickering resigned from the post. The UK-focused investment banking joint venture between Cazenove, the UK stockbroker, and JPMorgan (JPM.N), the US investment bank, has appointed headhunting firm Egon Zehnder to handle the recruitment. People close to the situation said informal approaches have been made to several candidates and the nominations committee is close to inviting people to formal interviews. Cazenove's chairman David Mayhew said at the firm's annual meeting last month that an appointment was likely within two months.

BATM LANDS US CONTRACT

BATM, the Israel-based specialist in switches for high-capacity Ethernet internet, will announce on Monday that it has won a contract to supply equipment to one of the world's first fourth-generation mobile networks. Industry analysts expect its partner to be US group Sprint Nextel (S.N), which has earmarked more than three billion dollars (1.5 billion pounds) for investment in a fourth-generation, WiMax-based wireless network. Zvi Marom, chief executive of BATM, said: "We believe that this is the first project of its kind anywhere in the world, and our involvement is further evidence of the quality of our technology."

Prepared for Reuters by Durrants