RPT-REUTERS SUMMIT-Expect more Norwegian firms to go public - state fund boss

(Repeats to add FUND to story slug)

By Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche

OSLO, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Investors should expect more Norwegian companies to go public in the near future as they search for capital to grow their business, the head of Norway's largest domestic-focused investment fund said on Monday.

"We will see more companies coming to the stock exchange now, new companies coming and seeing some capital there," Olaug Svarva, managing director of Folketrygdfondet, said in an interview at the Reuters Nordic Investment Summit.

The state-owned fund, which has some $25 billion under management, invests mostly in Norwegian bonds and stocks, including all the major companies in the Nordic country such as Statoil and telecoms group Telenor.

"Given the return you get on the fixed income markets, the stock market still looks interesting - even though we have had more than a doubling (in value) over the last five years," Svarva said at the summit, held at the Reuters office in Oslo.

She expected Norwegian companies to be generally averse to risks as the world economy slowly picks up from the doldrums, however.

"I think the companies will generally be careful with their balance sheets and their risk profile," she said.

Folketrygdfondet has investments in the other Nordic countries too, accounting for some 15 percent of its portfolio.

The fund is separate from Norway's $780-billion sovereign wealth fund, the so-called oil fund, which invests exclusively in stocks, bonds and property outside Norway.

Follow Reuters Summits on Twitter @Reuters_Summits . (Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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UPDATE 1-KKR buys stake in appliance maker in biggest China deal

* Third Asian deal in the past week

* China's home appliance market expected reach $105 bln in next two years

* Qingdao trades at historic P/E of 10.6 times

By Stephen Aldred and Denny Thomas

HONG KONG, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Investment company KKR & Co LP said it had agreed to buy a 10-percent stake in Qingdao Haier Co Ltd, gaining exposure to China's home appliances market with its biggest investment in the country to date.

The acquisition, which is subject to shareholder and regulatory agreement, is KKR's third Asian deal in a week as it begins to invest its new $6 billion Asia fund, the region's largest ever.

The companies did not disclose the deal value, but a person familiar with the matter said New York-headquartered KKR paid around $550 million.

For the Chinese maker of washing machines and refrigerators the deal means a link to a global investment firm that could help it expand beyond its local market.

For KKR, the deal offers a stake in a firm that is inexpensive compared with peers and part of China's booming consumer market.

Foreign firms have been keen to access China's home appliance sector, which is forecast to grow by about one-fifth in the next two years to $105 billion, according to data from consultancy Euromonitor.

KKR's purchase comes less than two months after Whirlpool Corp, the world's largest maker of home appliances, agreed to buy a majority stake in China's Hefei Rongshida Sanyo Electric Co Ltd for $552 million.

In 2011, Carlyle Group paid $468 million for a 9.4 percent stake in Haier Electronics Group, a company controlled by Qingdao.

Qingdao Haier, which makes and distributes washing machines, refrigerators, air-conditioners and other appliances, has a market value of some $5.8 billion. Trade in its shares was halted on Sept. 12, pending an announcement.

Founded in 1984, Haier Group was a collection of factories on the verge of bankruptcy before transforming itself into a global consumer brand with 70,000 employees.

Qingdao Haier owns a 47.9 percent stake in Hong-Kong listed Haier Electronics Group, according to Thomson Reuters data.

UNDER VALUED

For KKR, the purchase comes at a low point in Qingdao Haier's valuations. The stock trades at a trailing price-to-earnings ratio of 10.6, making it the second-least expensive home appliance maker in the Asia-Pacific behind Gree Electric Appliances Inc of Zhuhai, Thomson Reuters data showed.

The Chinese home appliance industry is battling higher labour and operating costs and Chinese consumers are unwilling to pay a premium for local products.

Despite the sluggish retail market, KKR believes Qingdao Haier's stock is undervalued, and sees room for growth in China's home appliances market, according to a source with knowledge of the firm's investment strategy.

"If you look at the market today, the penetration of white goods is about the same level as Japan and the U.S. 30 years ago," the source said.

The source added that in China, 87 out of every 100 homes has a fridge, but the ratio in the US is 150 fridges to every 100 homes. KKR also expects to help Qingdao Haier with acquisitions, the source added.

KKR said last week it would lead a joint venture with China Modern Dairy Holdings Ltd and a Chinese private equity firm that would invest $140 million in two large dairy farms.

KKR said on Friday it had agreed to pay $1.7 billion for Panasonic Corp's healthcare unit, in the largest private equity offer in Asia this year.

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Britain has agreed fees, capital relief for mortgage plan-source

MANCHESTER, England, Sept 30 | Mon Sep 30, 2013 8:53am EDT

"We expect the majority (of the) lenders will ultimately participate," the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. "We expect other lenders to confirm in the weeks and months ahead - between now and January - that they will be participating - probably not all of them but the vast majority.

"House prices are basically flat in most of the country so this is a broad recovery from an extremely low base," the source said.

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Latin America most vulnerable to higher U.S. rates-IMF

WASHINGTON, Sept 30 | Mon Sep 30, 2013 8:59am EDT

WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Latin America is likely to suffer most if U.S. interest rates rise more quickly than economic conditions merit, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday.

But higher rates could also hit output in Europe and Asia, as any shock in the United States, the world's biggest economy and a large financial hub, usually reverberates around the world, the IMF said in a report.

The IMF said it was concerned rates may rise before the U.S. economy has fully recovered, which would most hurt countries that peg their exchange rates to the dollar.

But the global impact of a slower pace of bond-buying by the U.S. Federal Reserve is harder to gauge, the IMF said in the analytical chapters of its World Economic Outlook. The full report is due out Oct. 8.

The Fed earlier this month surprised markets when it postponed reducing its $85 billion a month worth of bond purchases, saying it needed to wait for more evidence of solid economic growth. Expectations that the U.S. central bank would start pulling back on its bond buying had prompted capital outflows from many emerging markets, as investors anticipated higher yields in advanced economies.

"A stronger-than-expected slowdown of growth in China is a major concern at present," the IMF added, though that would most likely hurt China's close trading partners in Asia and Latin America and would be less harmful to the world as a whole.

The IMF was tasked with assessing how problems in one country spread to another in the wake of the 2007-2009 global financial crisis, which showed how quickly and easily policies cascaded across borders and destabilized the global economy.

In its report, the Fund said the recent financial crisis was one of those rare periods when all the world's economies moved in lock-step, as the collapse of the U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers spread widespread panic and uncertainty.

That period has ended but could return, as policymakers have still not finished addressing the problem of institutions that are "too big to fail," the Fund warned.

"A large financial shock could again induce the world's economies to rise and fall in tandem," the IMF said. "There are still many systemically important financial institutions whose reach spans the globe."

The IMF also said most emerging markets in Latin America and other regions were hit by volatile capital flows in the midst of the crisis, but some were better at dealing with the problem than others.

Economies like Malaysia and Mexico, with flexible exchange rates, lower inflation and better fiscal policy and economic institutions were able to counter the destabilizing flows, usually through private financial adjustment.

But less resilient countries like Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey still suffered from the "boom and bust" cycle of sudden inflows and outflows that had bedeviled emerging markets in the past, the IMF said.

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REUTERS SUMMIT-Finnish Grand Cru looks beyond Supernauts launch

(For other news from Reuters Nordic Investment Summit, click here)

* Grand Cru to launch first mobile game, Supernauts

* Already eyeing second and third games

* Angry Birds, Clash of Clans pave way for Finnish start-ups

By Ritsuko Ando

HELSINKI, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Grand Cru, widely seen as the next big player in Finland's gaming industry which has spawned the likes of Rovio's Angry Birds and Supercell's Clash of Clans, is already working on a new game although it has yet to launch its first.

Chief Executive Markus Pasula started the company in 2011 with seven other gaming industry veterans. The founders' experience has helped them secure nearly 13 million euros ($18 million) in funding, including 8.5 million euros in July from a group led by French private equity investor Idinvest Partners and including Qualcomm Ventures and Nokia Growth Partners.

The funding has meant there is no hurry to launch its first game, Supernauts, which includes challenges such as saving people from flooding as polar ice caps melt.

"It could be this year but it might not be this year," Pasula said of the launch. Speaking to Reuters as part of the Reuters Nordic Investment Summit, he said it was still in limited beta mode and would soon be tested more widely.

"We're looking to do a bigger beta launch almost this week," he said in an interview at Grand Cru's office in Helsinki's working class Kallio district, with views over the harbour and neighbouring industrial warehouses.

Pasula said he was also starting to look beyond Supernauts.

"We have one new team already starting, it's still looking for a lead programmer for that team, but they have a really good designer," he said, adding that there were also ideas for a third game.

The gaming industry is considered one of the few bright spots in the small Nordic economy, with previous tech flagship Nokia selling off its struggling handset business to Microsoft and traditional industries such as paper shutting mills and cutting jobs amid a decline in global demand.

MOBILE CULTURE

Pasula said Finland's gaming companies may have been successful due in part to an early understanding of the importance of mobile gaming.

While he does not recall hiring any of his 32-member staff from Nokia, he said Nokia's success and the culture it created helped encourage developers to focus on mobile games.

"Nokia definitely supported that. Nokia was spreading the message in the local scene that mobile gaming is going to be a big thing," he said. "Every signal shows that mobile gaming, especially the free-to-play gaming on mobile, is going to grow every year significantly."

Supernauts is being built for Apple's iOS system. Pasula said the primary target was the regular, rather than hardcore, game player using a mobile device like the iPad. Games for Android software may come later, he said.

Pasula previously headed Mr.Goodliving, a Finnish video game company that specialised in games for mobile phones and was acquired by RealNetworks in 2005.

While U.S. gaming companies such as Zynga Inc and Electronic Arts have grown through acquisitions, Pasula said he had no interest in selling Grand Cru.

"We don't have any particular exit plan in mind," he said, adding that big players did not appear to have much advantage over small, unique startups. "We do plan taking Supernauts as far as it's possible, so when the game is successful we'll start looking at how do we take the universe of Supernauts further, and how do we improve the game as a service."

Finnish startups often have trouble securing seed investment due to a lack of venture capital at home, but Pasula said the need to appeal to overseas investors has meant they often aim for a global, rather than just local, business.

"They are more international from the get-go," he said.

He said Rovio and Supercell have helped to boost recognition of Finnish gaming companies overseas.

"It is so fantastic that we have the reputation now," he said. "All of my visits with Grand Cru to San Francisco to go meet all marketing partners we have there - Apple and Google and Facebook - they all just instantly recognise that we are a gaming company from Finland." ($1 = 0.7385 euros) (Additional reporting by Jussi Rosendahl and Terhi Kinnunen; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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Britain to introduce mortgage guarantee scheme within days - PM Cameron

LONDON, Sept 28 | Sat Sep 28, 2013 4:54pm EDT

LONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Britain will introduce a mortgage guarantee scheme aimed at helping people buy their own home three months earlier than planned, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Saturday.

"I won't stand by while hardworking people can't afford a home. That's why I'm bringing forward 'Help to Buy' scheme," Cameron said in a statement on the eve of the Conservative party conference.

Cameron said the scheme, which will offer guarantees for 95-per-cent mortgages for homes up to 600,000 pounds ($967,300), would start next week. It had been due to begin in January 2014.

Critics of the government have said it is stoking a housing bubble in London by backing mortgages.

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