Friday newspaper round-up: Centrica, Lloyds, RBS...

21st Feb 2014 07:13

The boss of Centrica has refused to commit to another year at the helm of the British Gas owner as frustration mounts at political attacks on the energy industry. Sam Laidlaw, Centrica's chief executive, has been the target of personal attacks by consumer groups and politicians in recent months over rising household gas and electricity bills. - The TimesLloyds Banking Group is facing a run-in with retail and institutional bond investors after threatening to buy back billions of its high-interest-bearing debts at less than their face value. More than 120,000 investors bought into more than £7.5bn of bonds issued by the bank in 2009 to help to keep it out of the Government's emergency insurance scheme for toxic securities. - The TimesRoyal Bank of Scotland is preparing a dramatic retrenchment that would see it become a much smaller UK retail and commercial bank in a move that is expected to slash staff numbers by at least 30,000 in the coming years. The bank, which is 81% owned by the government, is next week expected to announce its withdrawal from many of its riskier investment banking activities alongside a plan to offload much of its international business. - Financial TimesEurope lurched towards its first civil war this century last night after police snipers killed scores of protesters in central Kiev in a sharp escalation of the violence threatening to split Ukraine. In three hours, more than 60 demonstrators were shot dead and hundreds wounded by volleys of rooftop fire, doctors sympathetic to the protests claimed. It was the largest violent loss of life in a single day on European soil since the Madrid train bombings in 2004. - The TimesBoots the Chemist, founded by Quakers in 1849, has signed an exclusive deal with a subsidiary of Imperial Tobacco that means the high street chain will be selling electronic cigarettes from Monday. The Puritane product has been developed by Fontem Ventures in collaboration with Boots and will be sold over the pharmacy counter. The product does not have a medicines licence. - The TimesNigerian president Goodluck Jonathan has suspended central bank governor Lamido Sanusi, removing an increasingly outspoken critic of the government's record on tackling rampant corruption in Africa's leading energy producer. Currency, bond and money markets stopped trading because of the uncertainty created by the suspension. Trading in the naira currency resumed after the central bank intervened with dollar sales, by which time debt markets were closed. - Daily Telegraph AB