Monday newspaper round-up: RBS, LSE, IMF, The Prelude

23rd May 2011 06:14

Royal Bank of Scotland is braced for the City regulator to refer to Sir Fred Goodwin's alleged affair with a colleague in its long-awaited report into the bank's collapse. As the fallout from Sir Fred's superinjunction spreads, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has contacted the bank for details of the alleged liaison involving the former RBS chief executive, says the Times.The London Stock Exchange has hit back at a Canadian bank-led consortium that is trying to break up the UK bourse's planned merger with TMX Group, operator of Canada's exchanges, calling its offer "an underwhelming proposal". The comments follow the rejection by TMX Group on Friday of the C$3.6bn (£2.3bn) offer for its exchange operations, tabled by the consortium, which calls itself Maple, the Financial Times reports.George Osborne is to back Christine Lagarde to be the new head of the International Monetary Fund despite fears of a backlash from emerging nations which do not want another European as the head of the fund. The French finance minister will now be the odds-on favourite to get the role as Europe has a powerful bloc vote on the IMF board, says the Telegraph.But the Guardian reports that Australia and South Africa challenged the convention of appointing a European as head of the International Monetary Fund on Sunday, opening a north-south rift over the future of the agency in the wake of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest in New York for sexual assault.Labelux, which owns the Bally bag and shoe designer and the Derek Lam fashion label, announced last night that it had acquired the high-end shoe maker Jimmy Choo for a price believed to be in the region of £500 million. This is the fourth time that Jimmy Choo has been sold since it was founded in 1996 by the designer who gave his name to the company and Tamara Mellon.Plantation owners and pressure groups are calling on food producers such as Unilever and Nestlé to stop exploiting an environmental "offset" scheme to buy palm oil from unsustainable sources, says the Financial Times.The belt-tightening taking place elsewhere in the economy does not appear to have affected luxury fashions, which are going through a boom period. Burberry chief executive Angela Ahrendts, pictured, is in line for a £12m pay and bonus package, thanks to strong demand for her pricey wares. The group is expected to announce a 40% profit rise to £300m this week, according to the Daily Mail.Greencore, the UK's leading sandwich-maker, has held talks with private equity companies over a potential sale of the group, just months after it failed in an attempt to buy giant rival Northern Foods.Sources close to the talks said the Dublin-based company was exploring its options after failing to land the takeover of Northern two months ago, and a sale had been discussed, the Independent reports.Business confidence is slightly up, according to the latest ICAEW/Grant Thornton UK Business Confidence Monitor. After four consecutive quarters of decline the index saw a rise of 4.1 to plus-13.7 this quarter as businesses feel more certain about the UK's economic prospects, the Independent reports.Royal Dutch Shell is spending $12.6bn (£7.8bn) to build the world's largest floating structure as it seeks to produce and process gas from increasingly remote locations. Called The Prelude the platform will be moored more than 125 miles from Australia and will produce and process gas from offshore fields before liquefying it to be taken off by tankers, says the Daily Express.