A-Z of Sunday business news

12 April 2012

THIS Is Money reads the Sunday papers so you don't have to. Here is this week's run-down of who is making the headlines on the City pages, and why:

Accounting

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Reliant Resources, the $2.5bn Houston-based energy trading and generating company with offices in London, admitted that it has artificially inflated its revenues by more than $7.9bn over the past three years.

OBSERVER: Andersen, the stricken accountancy firm at the centre of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, has escaped being barred from lucrative UK government contracts following a Whitehall review.

AstraZeneca

SUNDAY TIMES: HSBC Private Equity is close to entering into exclusive talks to buy Marlow Foods, the maker of the Quorn substitute-meat range owned by Astra Zeneca.

BNFL

SUNDAY TIMES: The Department of Trade and Industry has recruited Andersen, the accountant, to advise on a restructuring of BNFL, the state-owned nuclear technology company.

Boots

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Boots and J Sainsbury fear that the Office of Fair Trading is to block the retailers' joint venture tie-up which has seen Boots products sold in the supermarket's stores.

BP

INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY: BP has agreed to pay out nearly £30m in an out-of-court settlement after being sued for breaking strict anti-pollution laws in California.

Britannic

THE BUSINESS: The auction of Britannic Group has collapsed after the Dutch financial services giant Aegon abandoned preliminary talks that may have led to it bidding up to £1.6bn for the troubled UK life insurer.

British Energy

THE BUSINESS: British Energy, the loss-making nuclear operator, has a £5bn 'black hole' in its accounts relating to the cost of storing spent fuel from its reactors when they are decommissioned, it has been claimed.

BT

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Ben Verwaayen, the chief executive of BT Group, has ruled out demerging or selling its network of local telephone wires, in a move that will disappoint critics of BT's progress in opening its so-called local loops to competitors.

Carlton Communications

SUNDAY EXPRESS: Granada and Carlton Communications are back in merger talks with both sides hoping to complete a deal within weeks.

OBSERVER: Carlton and Granada, the ITV companies which failed last week to win back their digital television licence, rejected a chance to join the BBC's winning consortium, Director General Greg Dyke has revealed.

Claims Direct

OBSERVER: Colin Poole, co-founder and former chief executive of Claims Direct, is taking the troubled compensation firm to court. He says the company still owes Poole & Co, his legal firm, £200,000 in unpaid bills.

Crime

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: The National Criminal Intelligence Service, the government agency set up to combat serious crime including money laundering, has been swamped by a massive rise in reports of suspicious financial transactions since September 11.

Elan

THE BUSINESS: Elan, the troubled Irish pharmaceuticals group, will try to regain investor confidence this week by addressing concerns about the strength of its balance sheet.

EMI

INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY: EMI, the UK music giant, is facing an investor showdown over pay that could lead to its two most senior directors being forced off the board.

Energis

SUNDAY TIMES: Energis is to be taken over by its creditor banks this week under a plan to help salvage some of its debt.

Esporta

SUNDAY EXPRESS: Duke Street Capital, the private-equity firm bidding 80p a share to buy health club operator Esporta, is expected to raise its hostile offer to 90p within a few days.

Fish!

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Tony Allan, the founder of the Fish! restaurant group, is preparing to buy back at least half of the cash-strapped chain.

OBSERVER: Chairman Tony Allan, who says he has lost £16m as shares in Fish collapsed in the past year, blamed the man he appointed as chief executive, Paul Gilligan, for the plight of the company.

Flotations

THE BUSINESS: Wellington Re, the new UK-based reinsurance operation, is planning to float on the London Stock Exchange in early 2004 for about £1bn.

THE BUSINESS: New Star Asset Management, the fund management business which was launched by City tycoon John Duffield last summer, is planning a £270m initial public offering on the London market next year.

Focus Wickes

INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY: The DIY group Focus Wickes is considering whether to borrow up to £200m to pay shareholders a special dividend, following the shelving of its flotation.

Formula One

SUNDAY TIMES: Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One chief, warned that teams will have to run three cars instead of two from next season if any more teams go bust.

Granada

OBSERVER: Carlton and Granada, the ITV companies which failed last week to win back their digital television licence, rejected a chance to join the BBC's winning consortium, Director General Greg Dyke has revealed.

SUNDAY EXPRESS: Granada and Carlton Communications are back in merger talks with both sides hoping to complete a deal within weeks.

Hedge funds

SUNDAY TIMES: David Prosser, chief executive of Legal & General, one of Britain‘s biggest life and pension funds, has called for a regulatory review of the way hedge funds are influencing stock markets.

In the boardroom

SUNDAY TIMES: Jean-Pierre Garnier of Glaxo Smith Kline offers the worst value for money of any chief executive in the FTSE 100, according to a Sunday Times analysis. In three years he was paid £24.2m as the company's share price plummeted. Chris O‘Donnell of the healthcare group Smith & Nephew was found to offer the best value.

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: The UK management buy-out market has collapsed by more than 50% in value over the past 12 months.

Jarvis

SUNDAY TIMES: Jarvis, the beleaguered railway contractor, has recruited John Mayo, the former deputy chief executive of Marconi, as an adviser.

Kingfisher

SUNDAY TIMES: NM Rothschild, the investment bank, has said Kingfisher‘s £3.2bn offer for Castorama, the French DIY giant, is 'fair value'.

Marks & Spencer

SUNDAY TIMES: The man who led the turnaround at Marks & Spencer, chairman and chief executive Luc Vandevelde, will tell its annual meeting on Wednesday that he is standing down as chief executive and will become a part-time chairman.

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Luc Vandevelde, the chairman and chief executive of Marks & Spencer, is planning to work part-time for the group by the end of this year.

Pensions

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: The Government will this week make its boldest attempt to solve the pensions crisis by sweeping away costly red tape and regulations that push up the cost of making simple investments.

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: The Financial Services Authority, the City regulator, is considering a radical shake-up of its own staff pension scheme in a bid to reduce a £31.5m deficit in the fund.

THE BUSINESS: The Government will not make it compulsory for employees to join company pension schemes, despite a recommendation, to be announced this week, that would ease the growing pensions crisis.

Property

OBSERVER: Up to 200,000 new homes will be built in 'opportunity zones' in the South East under Government plans to be announced later this month.

INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY: The Chancellor will announce next week the biggest boom in affordable housing for more than two decades in an attempt to curb spiralling property prices.

Sainsbury

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Boots and J Sainsbury fear that the Office of Fair Trading is to block the retailers' joint venture tie-up which has seen Boots products sold in the supermarket's stores.

Scottish & Southern Energy

OBSERVER: Scottish & Southern Energy is being stalked by Eon, the German energy giant that has recently completed a deal to take over PowerGen. Eon is considering a £7bn bid for SSE, worth about 900p a share.

Speciality Retail Group

SUNDAY TIMES: The owner of the Suits You and Woodhouse chains, Speciality Retail Group, is this week expected to announce the acquisition of Chester Barrie, one of Britain‘s last large-scale bespoke tailors.

Stanley Leisure

THE BUSINESS: UK gaming operator Stanley Leisure has secured the City's blessing to tap the equity market for capital if it wins the bidding war for Britain's third largest bookmaker, Coral Eurobet, which put itself on sale last month.

Surveys

SUNDAY TIMES: The number of companies in trouble increased by 7% last month, according to The Sunday Times/Mandis Agony Index.

THE BUSINESS: Businesses in the eurozone are at a greater risk of suffering from the corporate meltdown than their UK-headquartered counterparts, according to a report from leading financial services group JP Morgan.

Vodafone

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: The future of Vizzavi, the £1bn internet joint venture between Vivendi Universal and Vodafone, hung in the balance as the cash crisis at Vivendi worsened and the online group was forced to appoint an emergency chairman.

INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY: Vodafone is preparing to approach its shareholders to persuade them to allow it to spend up to £10bn to buy the Vivendi-owned French's mobile phone business and a smattering of other minority holdings across Europe.

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