Sunday newspaper round-up: JJB Sports, Lloyds Banking, Punch Taverns

11th Oct 2009 11:16

JJB, the sportswear giant, claimed last night that it was the target of an elaborate hoax designed to sabotage a £100m fundraising plan and wreck the reputation of its chairman.The allegations were so serious that the retailer was forced on Friday to postpone the rights issue because it believed "malicious and vicious" rumours about the personal finances of its chairman Sir David Jones were to appear in a Saturday newspaper, the Sunday Times reports.Meanwhile, Steve Johnson, the chief executive of Woolworths when it collapsed last year, has been approached by advisers to JJB about becoming the struggling sports retailer's chief executive, the Sunday Independent reports.Lloyds Banking is preparing to push the button on an £11 billion rights issue in the next two weeks, after lining up a powerful syndicate of investment banks to support the move. UBS and Bank of America Merrill Lynch would act as lead underwriters on the deal, which would be linked to Lloyds' attempts to cut its participation in a government-backed toxic loan insurance scheme, the Sunday Times reports.Meanwhile, Lloyds is close to "blocking" private equity groups from investing in its badly hit £50bn-plus property portfolio. The part-state owned bank is trying to repair its balance sheet by finding joint venture partners to take big stakes in property assets and by raising cash from shareholders, the Sunday Independent says.Britain's financial sector is under threat from European legislation and an increasing tax burden on high-earning individuals, a report from the Mayor of London's office says. The report, released this week, says that the status of London as a world financial capital will be undermined if new EU rules controlling UK hedge funds and private equity are given the go-ahead by Brussels, the Sunday Telegraph reports.A revolution in the support given to Britain's nuclear and renewables industries will be revealed tomorrow, including plans for direct intervention in the energy market to force action on climate change targets. The Government's Committee on Climate Change, headed by Lord Turner, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) chairman, will say that there should be a "floor price" on carbon emission permits, the Sunday Telegraph reports.BG Group has received an unsolicited offer for part of its £1.5bn power generation business and could announce a sale imminently. The gas giant has appointed Goldman Sachs to advise on the bid, which is understood to be for most but not all of the arm's operations, the Sunday Times reports. Punch Taverns is expected to write down the value of its real estate by as much as 10% - around £600m - as declining earnings drag down the value of some of its assets. Britain's biggest pub landlord is also set to report a significant drop in profits this week, the Sunday Telegraph reports.Glencore, the secretive Swiss-based commodity trader, is edging closer to a deal that could see it buy a Colombian coal mine from Xstrata for more than $2bn (£1.2bn), according to bankers in London. The prospect of a deal could stoke speculation that Xstrata is seeking funds to enable it to sweeten its offer for Anglo American, the Observer reports.The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has ratcheted up the pressure on BAE Systems by hiring Timothy Langdale, a top criminal QC, to help submit a corruption case to the attorney-general within three weeks. Senior legal sources say the SFO is also considering helping America's Department of Justice broaden its inquiry into BAE to include contracts in Africa and central Europe, the Sunday Times reports.Two Oxford scientists could each be sitting on £180m paper fortunes when the internet security firm they founded in a front room floats next year. Jan Hruska and Peter Lammer, who set up Sophos in 1985 after meeting as postgraduates, own 60% of the company, which could achieve a $1 billion (£626m) valuation when it heads to the stock market. The firm is expected to float on Nasdaq in New York two years after it abandoned plans to list in London because of market volatility, the Sunday Times reports.Sir Fred Goodwin could be sued for billions of pounds by aggrieved Royal Bank of Scotland investors, it was announced last night. He is one of several former directors being targeted in a £9bn lawsuit being planned by the RBS Shareholders Group, which represents thousands of private shareholders left out of pocket by the bank's near-collapse, the Mail on Sunday reports.Interest rates in Britain are to stay low for years to compensate for a severe fiscal squeeze on the economy, a report to be published this week says. The Centre for Economics and Business Research, in its latest UK Prospects, to be published tomorrow, predicts that Bank rate will remain at 0.5% until 2011 and not reach 2% until 2014, the Sunday Times reports.Bonuses at Goldman Sachs are expected to be almost double last year's level when the prestigious investment bank announces its third- quarter results on Thursday. Michael Hecht, analyst at JMP Securities, said that bonuses will account for $9bn (£5.7bn) of Goldman's $16.7bn expenditure on staff pay, compared with an estimated $4.5bn for the same period in 2008, the Sunday Independent reports.The government's record on youth unemployment will come under intense scrutiny this week amid fears that the number of jobless 16 to 24-year-olds will rise through the one-million barrier. Economists believe the failure of large numbers of this year's school leavers and graduates to find work this summer will lead to a sharp jump in those under 25 without work when the data for August is released on Wednesday, the Observer reports.Iceland's most controversial banker, Sigurdur Einarsson, the former executive chairman of failed bank Kaupthing, has been made an official suspect by fraud prosecutors examining alleged market manipulation relating to an investment in the bank by Qatari royal Sheikh Mohammed Bin Khalifa al-Thani weeks before its collapse a year ago, the Observer reports.