News round up: BP, Morgan Stanley, Facebook, Ireland, Spain, Graff Diamonds.

Lord Browne, the former chief executive of FTSE 100 (INDEXFTSE:UKX) listed oil and gas company BP plc (LON:BP) and one of only a handful of openly gay business titans, has criticised UK plc for being intolerant of homosexuality. The crossbench peer resigned in 2007 after nine years running BP because of allegations about his private life. Speaking publicly about being gay for the first time since leaving BP, Lord Browne compared corporate Britain unfavourably to other sectors of society.

"My sense is that the business world remains more intolerant of homosexuality than other worlds such as the legal profession, the media and the visual arts.... I am one of a handful of publicly gay people to have run a FTSE 100 company," he said. "In some industries, the situation is particularly bad. Among the many people I know in private equity, where I now work, fewer than 1 per cent are openly gay."

Lord Browne was speaking at the launch of Connect Out, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender network set up by Arup, the engineering and design consultancy. He went on to say that he believed that gay people are often put off applying for jobs because they are concerned about the risk of discrimination, writes the Independent.

Morgan Stanley and Facebook

The boss of Morgan Stanley has defended his bank’s leading role in the bungled flotation of Facebook, claiming that there was no “nefarious activity” involved. James Gorman told his staff that they should be proud of their work in arranging Facebook’s initial public offering and that the success of the listing should be judged over time.

He also said that Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, had offered to give Morgan Stanley a professional recommendation for its work, the Times reports.

Ireland

Ireland’s government is confident of victory in Thursday's eurozone fiscal pact referendum as secret official polling forecasts that over 60 per cent of Irish voters will tick the Yes box. Polling stations will close at 10:00 on Thursday after the only popular vote to be held in the 25 European Union countries that have signed up to a treaty that enshrines eurozone austerity rules into national law, writes the Telegraph.

Spain

Beleaguered Spain was handed a lifeline by the European Commission yesterday as the nation was given an extra year to slash its deficit. […] Under the terms of the fiscal pact, Spain is obliged to cut its deficit to 3% in 2013, forcing a brutal €27bn (£21.5bn) in budget cuts from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's centre-right administration.

But these targets are widely seen as optimistic given Spain's economic woes. The commission's economic and monetary affairs commissioner, Olli Rehn, said Spain would be given an extra year to meet the target, subject to controls on spending, according to the Independent.

Graff Diamonds

Falling stock markets have forced high-end jeweller Graff Diamonds to ditch its $1bn (£637m) flotation in Hong Kong. Reports suggested Graff pulled its planned Hong Kong listing after receiving orders for just half its $1bn initial public offering (IPO) less than two days before its deadline. A company spokesmen said: "Graff Diamonds Corporation confirms that owing to adverse market conditions it has decided to postpone its planned IPO and listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange," reports the Telegraph.