Friday newspaper round-up: BT, Asda, Prudential

16th Apr 2010 06:20

Orange has opened up a new front in the fight for broadband customers after abandoning its fixed-line network and cutting a deal with BT to offer better high-speed internet. The move is Tom Alexander's first significant strategic decision as chief executive since Orange and T-Mobile merged last month to create a company with nearly 30 million mobile customers and an ambition to up its game in the burgeoning broadband market, says the Times.Asda, the UK's second-biggest supermarket, has outlined ambitious plans to leapfrog Tesco as the nation's biggest seller of clothing, homewares and entertainment products by 2015, writes the Telegraph.Prudential has pledged to keep its primary stock market listing in the UK even if the insurer's British business is sold and the head office moved to Asia following its planned $35.5bn (£23.5bn) takeover of AIA, AIG's Asian operation, reports the Telegraph.Rio Tinto has issued "extra guidelines" to employees about "gathering information in China", after four Shanghai-based employees last month were convicted of stealing commercial secrets. The move may be followed by other companies operating in China, according to the FT.Greece stopped short of asking for aid in a letter seeking talks with EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials yesterday. The Greek finance minister George Papconstantinou wrote seeking discussions on "a multi year programme of economic policies", but did not ask for the activation of the bail out mechanism recently agreed upon by European governments, says the Independent.The Telegraph adds that Morgan Stanley has warned that the Greek debt crisis is setting off a chain of events that may prompt German withdrawal from the eurozone, with grim implications for investors caught off-guard.BP, Europe's biggest energy company, has appeared to face down shareholder anger over executive pay and its controversial plan to extract crude from Canadian oil sands. According to preliminary results, 84.2pc of investors voted in favor of BP's executive pay proposals, with 8.3pc against it, a spokesman for the company said, writes the Telegraph.Goldman Sachs has been drawn into Wall Street's largest insider-trading case, with allegations that Raj Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group founder, and others used private information to trade the bank's shares at the height of the financial crisis, reports the Times.The age of austerity is over, as the well-heeled splash out on Porsches and Dom Pérignon champagne, according to retailers of luxury goods. The wealthy are more prepared to open their wallets than at any time in the past two years, suggesting they have put the financial crisis behind them, according to the FT.Seven traders arrested by the City watchdog in the biggest insider dealing investigation yet seen in Britain will have their defence costs paid for by legal aid, the Independent has learned.Sales of milk in plastic bags have "sky-rocketed" at Sainsbury's since the supermarket rolled out the product nationally in February. Britain's third-biggest grocer said sales of the two-pint bags, which use 75 per cent less packaging than standard plastic milk bottles, had soared to 110,000 a week, says the Independent.