Sunday newspaper round-up: Bank of England, Prudential, ITV...

12th Dec 2010 13:55

The Bank Of England is forcing high street lenders to repay £185 bn of emergency loans in an attempt to avert a new market meltdown next year.Bank officials have held meetings with Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays, HSBC and the biggest building societies demanding that the loans, which were handed out at the peak of the financial crisis, be paid back sooner than planned. Analysts warn that the tough line could stop banks lending to small businesses and slow down Britain's economic recovery, reports the Sunday Times.Mark Tucker, the chief executive of AIA has revealed that the Asian insurance giant has little interest in bidding for the Prudential's Far East assets, putting to bed persistant speculation that it could launch a multi-billion pound takeover battle. In his first UK interview as chief executive of AIA, Mark Tucker said that the growth strategy for AIA would be organic and that the firm was looking at tactical opportunities rather than major acquisitions, the Sunday Telegraph reports.An American property tycoon is this weekend considering a £3bn takeover approach for Capital Shopping Centres (CSC), the British owner of outlets such as the Arndale Centre in Manchester and Lakeside in Essex. David Simon, boss of Simon Property Group, the largest mall operator in America, is desperate to stop CSC buying the Trafford Centre from John Whittaker, a property mogul. The deal would give Whittaker a stake of up to 25% in the British firm and give him a powerful say in its future. Simon owns 5% of CSC, and is furious about the Whittaker agreement, the Sunday Times reports.Punch Taverns is drawing up a radical restructuring plan to force its lenders to slash the pub company's crippling debts. Advisers to the firm are working on a controversial proposal to default on the loans on more than 5,000 pubs. Punch's lenders would be forced to take possession ? and then the company would take them back on better terms. Some of the lenders would lose part of their loans in the process. The company is struggling with £3.1bn of debt secured against its pub estate. The bulk of the loans, £2.6bn, is backed by its tenanted pubs ? pubs it owns but leases to independent landlords, the Sunday Times reports.Marks & Spencer is in talks to open a store on the Champs-Elysées as part of its latest European strategy put in place by its new chief executive. Marc Bolland has hand-picked a Paris store to test the idea of expanding into wealthy European city-centres. It will sell only fashion, and will be smaller than previous attempts at European sites, the Sunday Independent reports.Ofgem, the energy regulator, has asked government statisticians to review the pension liabilities of some of the country's biggest gas and electricity companies, in a move that has infuriated unions. The Government Actuary's Department (GAD) will produce a report into the efficiency of the funding of pension funds of electricity and gas distributors and transmission companies by March, the Sunday Independent reports.Unemployment will rise throughout next year as businesses fail to offset tens of thousands of job losses across the public sector, analysts have warned. Economists fear there will also be job cuts at companies that supply the state, while the Vat and other tax rises in the new year will make companies increasingly reluctant to hire. Ross Walker at Royal Bank of Scotland said he expects 60,000 fewer people to be in work by the end of 2011, the Sunday Times reports. Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has warned those who bet against the euro that they "will not succeed". The single currency won't fail, and the region's nations are determined to defend it, Mr Schaeuble told German newspaper the Bild am Sonntag in an interview published on Sunday. "All those responsible in Europe agree: the euro is to all our advantage. And that's why we will successfully defend it," Mr Schaeuble was cited as saying, reports the Sunday Telegraph.Phone firm TalkTalk has missed a deadline set by Ofcom to cease charging customers for services not provided and to stop wrongly chasing them for payment. TalkTalk, which has four million home phone and broadband customers, was told by the regulator to comply with telecoms rules over the issue by December 2 or face a fine of up to ten per cent of relevant turnover, which could amount to more than £150 million. Ofcom is now considering whether to extend the deadline or impose a penalty, the Mail on Sunday reports.Whoever triumphs in The X Factor final tonight, ITV will be the winner. The channel is expected to earn a record £20m in advertising revenues from the weekend's shows. Industry insiders said advertisers from Coca-Cola to Waitrose were being charged between £200,000 and £300,000 for 30-second slots during the show - 50% or more higher than normal prime-time rates, the Mail on Sunday reports.Unsuspecting shoppers who take out store cards and then forget about them could be hit with surprise charges, thanks to a change in policy from Britain's largest store card operator. Santander, which owns cards operated by House of Fraser, Laura Ashley, Debenhams and many more, has written to its customers with a variety of changes to terms and conditions. These include the right to charge a £10 fee if customers do not use the cards for six months, the Sunday Telegraph reports.Santander has been forced to raise the pay of key staff to prevent mass defections to rivals following the loss of its former UK boss, António Horta-Osório, to Lloyds Banking Group. As codes issued by the Financial Services Authority make it difficult for the Spanish bank to offer retention packages to bankers, Santander has been left with little option but to offer straightforward pay rises to staff tempted by rival offers, the Observer reports.Glitnir and Landsbanki were breaching banking regulations by the time 64 British local authorities deposited most of their £800m into the Icelandic lenders, according to two secret reports on the collapse. Documents commissioned by Iceland's special prosecutor and seen by The Sunday Telegraph suggest Glitnir was operating below the legal limits of its capital adequacy ratios by the end of 2007. A second report for the prosecutor's office claims Landsbanki also breached the conditions of its banking licence at the end of 2007.Members of bankrupt pension schemes have been handed a near-blanket guarantee by a radical court ruling that pushes them right up the creditor hierarchy but has been branded "catastrophic" for banks and companies. In a fundamental shake-up of the corporate debt structure, pension trustees will be able to demand a lump-sum payment from administrators of a failed business ahead of all lenders bar those backed by property assets. Even the administrators will be lower in the pecking order, the Sunday Telegraph reports.