Friday newspaper round-up: SuperGroup, Google, Sainsbury's, Barclays

12th Feb 2016 07:13

(ShareCast News) - Jamie Dimon has tried to put out a fire in financials stocks, spending more than $26m to buy half a million shares in JPMorgan Chase, the bank he has run for a decade. The purchase - confirmed in a filing on Thursday evening - is the first big open-market purchase Mr Dimon has made since the "London Whale" scandal four years ago, when the bank's shares were knocked by the disclosure that a trading desk had racked up billions of dollars of losses. - Financial Times SuperGroup founder Julian Dunkerton is selling a 4.9pc stake worth £53m in his first share sale since the fashion retailer listed on the stock market six years ago. It is understood that Mr Dunkerton is selling 4m shares to fund a recent divorce settlement. - TelegraphStarwood Hotels & Resorts is to take its W Hotels brand to Scotland after agreeing a deal to operate a new hotel being built in Edinburgh city centre. The company will open a hotel with around 200 rooms in the redevelopment of the St James shopping centre, which is being built by TH Real Estate. Martin Perry, development director for TH Real Estate, confirmed that the company was in talks with a hotel operator. - TelegraphGoogle's executives have been accused of being out of touch with reality after the company's most senior UK-based executive was unable to tell MPs how much he earned. Matt Brittin appeared before the public accounts committee on Thursday to be questioned alongside senior tax officials about £130m in back taxes that Google agreed to pay in a deal announced last month. - GuardianThe former boss of Sainsbury's has waded into the row over the tax paid by multinationals such as Amazon and eBay, saying it was unfair that that traditional retailers must pay huge rates bills for services such as roads and waste collection, while their online rivals paid little but received the same benefits. Business rates, said Justin King, are a bigger problem for British retailers than the corporation tax scandal. - GuardianThe builder of the £18 billion Hinkley Point C nuclear power station is to tell its main contractor Areva to look at subcontracting major works for the plant to specialist British steelworks such as Sheffield Forgemasters, The Times has learnt. It is understood that EDF, the French state-owned energy company that is building Hinkley Point in return for government-backed susbsidised fuel prices, is revisiting its supply chain decisions after a row at Westminster in which the industry minister claimed British industries were incapable of taking on the work. - The TimesFraud investigators are examining the activities of a Barclays hedge fund that is alleged to have profited from using confidential information to make large profits on Libor "low-balling" at the height of the financial crisis. The Serious Fraud Office is looking at the Ricardo Master Fund as part of its Libor-rigging investigation amid claims that the Barclays-owned vehicle was involved in the rate manipulation scandal. - The Times