Monday's newspaper round-up: Tesco, Goldman Sachs, Gartmore

26th Apr 2010 06:32

Tesco, the supermarket chain, plans to develop four "mini-villages" in the South East along with "mixed-use living and leisure" schemes in Ipswich and northeast England. The schemes feature scores of homes, all near a Tesco store. The plans raise the prospect of people finding a home in a "mini-village" through the company's estate agent service, securing a mortgage through its banking arm and fitting it out with Tesco products bought on one of the company's credit cards, the Times reports.The next government will have to cut public sector pay, freeze benefits, slash jobs, abolish a range of welfare entitlements and take the axe to programmes such as school building and road maintenance - or make a set of equally politically perilous choices, according to an analysis by the Financial Times. The spending choices are so difficult that senior officials believe that an incoming chancellor may be forced to resort to additional tax increases.Tensions between Goldman Sachs and the US Senate have reached breaking point as the two sides wage a public war over whether the investment bank hoodwinked clients by betting against the sub-prime mortgage market. The two sides have been battling for the moral high ground ahead of tomorrow's (Tuesday) Senate testimony by Lloyd Blankfein, the investment bank's chief executive, the Telegraph reports.Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schauble has raised fresh obstacles to the €40bn (£35bn) aid package for Greece, warning that Berlin will not transfer funds until Athens agrees to tougher terms. Mr Schauble said no decision had yet been taken by Berlin or the European Union and that the outcome may yet be "negative". "It depends entirely on whether Greece goes through with the strict austerity in coming years," he told Bild Zeitung, the Telegraph reports.HSBC is seeking support for a plan to direct any industry-wide bank levy into government-sponsored venture capital agencies, as part of a rearguard mission to change the terms of the ongoing bank regulation debate. The bank has toured Europe seeking support for its ideas that include varying the capital buffers that banks are required to hold, depending on economic conditions. It believes banks should hold higher capital cushions in good times to absorb losses when conditions decline, the FT reports.Gartmore fired one of its senior traders for breaching rules just weeks before the suspension of its star fund manager, Guillaume Rambourg, in the latest revelation surrounding the embattled investment house. Mark Widowson, who executed trades on behalf of Gartmore's managers including its award-winning duo of Mr Rambourg and Roger Guy, was dismissed at the beginning of March for irregular trading activities, the Telegraph reports.A "no mercy" strategy by HM Revenue & Customs since 2005 has resulted in a significant uplift in revenues clawed back from tax evaders, but concerns have been raised over its "draconian powers" and a "disproportionate" amount of resources being spent investigating smaller companies. The accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young said that HMRC had managed to collect some £39.5bn through its tax enquiries and other compliance work since the organisation came into existence five years ago, following the merger between HM Customs & Excise and the Inland Revenue, the Independent reports.The British company whose futuristic designs led to the reinvention of the vacuum cleaner is planning to push the boundaries still further by hiring 350 engineers and scientists to work on new products. Dyson will double the number of people employed in its UK-based research and development department, the Times reports.Royal Bank of Scotland will tighten the performance targets on a multimillion-pound bonus scheme for its chief executive as the state-controlled bank tries to avert more public anger over pay.Sir Philip Hampton will admit to shareholders at the bank's annual meeting this week that the previous level at which the scheme would pay out ? the share price reaching 50p ? was too low, the Times reports.British companies brought forward more than £840m in dividend payments this year so that wealthy shareholders could avoid the new higher tax rate. Forty companies shifted their payments to squeeze them in before the April 6 deadline, according to a report published today by Capita Registrars, a research group, the Times reports.