Sunday newspaper round-up: Liverpool FC, Cadbury, Anglo American

11th Apr 2010 11:49

Barclays is to make a shock intervention at Liverpool FC, backing a £300m refinancing that will lead to the sale of the club. The bank is this weekend finalising a deal that will see it displace the club's current lenders, provide additional funds to Rafa Benitez, the manager, and install as chairman Martin Broughton of British Airways. Barclays Capital has been hired to find a buyer, says the Sunday Times.Kraft has hired bankers to sell Cadbury's Polish and Romanian businesses, a requirement for the American confectionery giant to take over the British chocolatemaker, writes the Sunday Telegraph.China Metallurgical Corporation is in the running for the $800m sell-off of zinc assets owned by Anglo American, the FTSE 100 mining giant run by chief executive Cynthia Carroll, reports the Independent on Sunday.Two Bank of England directors have been earmarked to take control of transferring banking supervision from the Financial Services Authority to the central bank if the Tories win the election. Paul Tucker, a deputy governor of the Bank, and Andrew Bailey, executive director of special operations in the banking sector, are the two bankers who the Conservatives believe are best equipped to deal with the interim period ahead of the proposed break-up of FSA, according to the Independent on Sunday.Profit warnings by UK companies dropped to a 10-year low in the first three months of the year, in a further sign that the economy is recovering. The number of profit warnings by quoted firms, which have been monitored for the past decade by Ernst & Young, the accountancy firm, fell to only 54 in the first quarter, a drop of more than 50% compared with the level of 117 in the corresponding period last year, says the Sunday Times.Labour and the Conservatives both stand guilty of presenting vastly under-ambitious economic plans which fail to address the dire state of the public finances, according to an analysis which concludes that the best solution for Britain is a bonfire of government spending, writes the Sunday Telegraph.The private equity giant 3i is considering whether to sell Shearings Group, the holiday company best known for its budget coach tours around Britain, for £125m, reports the Independent on Sunday.One of Britain's most prominent financiers is being investigated by the City watchdog over allegations that he misappropriated £1.3m. Ravi Sinha, the former European head of JC Flowers, the private equity firm, has been accused of skimming "fees" from a company owned by his fund. The allegations prompted Sinha's sudden departure from JC Flowers late last year, which took the City by surprise, according to the Sunday Times.China's reputation as the global economy's factory has been called into question after it recorded a trade deficit for the first time in six years. The country, which has leapfrogged Germany and Japan to become the world's second-biggest economy, imported more goods than it exported in March, according to figures released by the customs bureau, says the Sunday Telegraph.JPMorgan Cazenove, the Queen's stockbroker, has been hit by the departure of David Knox, the well-regarded head of the firm's UK equity research division, reports the Independent on Sunday.