Sunday newspaper round-up: Lloyds, Addax Petroleum, Friends Provident

14th Jun 2009 09:56

Lloyds Banking will lose an estimated £450m on Admiral Taverns, the pub giant, in what is believed to be one of the biggest write-offs it will be forced to take on a single investment. The group's Bank of Scotland arm had lent more than £850m to Admiral, owner of more than 2,000 pubs, to finance a string of acquisitions. The estate is now thought to be worth less than £500m and the bank is sounding out potential buyers of its debt, the Sunday Times reports.Meanwhile, Lloyds is ditching American customers based in Britain pending a crackdown on international tax evasion planned by President Barack Obama.This week American private client account-holders at Lloyds's received letters informing them of an "important change in policy regarding clients who are resident, domiciled or linked to the United States by property or asset holdings". They were told the bank had "no choice" but to "cease acting as your investment manager," the Sunday Telegraph reports.Friends Provident, the FTSE 100 insurer, is believed to be considering consolidating its offices across the South of England, which could result in job losses. The chief executive, Trevor Matthews, is believed to have asked his former Standard Life colleague Tony Brown, managing director of people and change at the company, to assess the viability of offices in Dorking, Salisbury and Exeter where nearly 2,000 work, the Sunday Independent reports.China is stepping up its race to secure access to global oil reserves with an audacious £4.8bn bid for Addax Petroleum, a London-listed group with fields in Iraqi Kurdistan and Nigeria. Sinopec, the Chinese state oil group, is understood to have tabled the indicative offer last week, trumping an earlier bid by the Korean National Oil Corporation, the Sunday Times reports.Amanda Staveley, one of the power-brokers who helped Barclays Bank raise money from the Gulf, is said to be also involved in the £8.2bn sale of Barclays Global Investors to its American rival BlackRock. Ms Staveley, who made at least £40m from her previous Barclays role, is said to have connections with BlackRock and is advising Middle-Eastern sovereign funds which are part of the consortium committing money to the American asset manager to help pay for BGI. She was not available or comment, the Sunday Indepedent writes.Chelsea, Newcastle and Principality are believed to be among the UK building societies considering whether to strengthen their balance sheets by following the lead of rival West Bromwich and converting outstanding debt into a new financial instrument. West Brom, Britain's eighth-largest building society, struck a deal on Friday to convert £182.5m of debt into "profit-participating deferred shares" (PPDSs). The agreement ensures its core tier-one capital ratio moves from 6.8% to 11.6% and is therefore within the limits set by the Financial Services Authority, the Sunday Telegraph reports.Controversial reforms of major companies' accounts threaten to unleash a new wave of financial calamity, experts have warned. Proposals by the Financial Reporting Council, the regulator responsible for promoting confidence in corporate governance and reporting, have raised the possibility that the accounts of wholly owned subsidiaries of major banks need not be audited, the Observer writes. Tesco, the country's largest supermarket chain, is set to show sales growth is picking up as the retailer stepped up its efforts to weather tough consumer spending conditions and fight off competition from rivals Sainsbury, Asda and Morrisons. Tesco's like-for like sales are next week expected to show a 3.5% rise in the 13 weeks to May 30, accelerating from a 2.7% increase in the final quarter of last year, the Sunday Telegaph reports. The Observer adds, though, the while Tesco's growth is ahead of the final quarter of its last financial year, it is barely half that of rivals Asda and Morrisons, which recently unveiled growth of 8.4% and 8.2% respectively. Gaming giant Gala Coral is trying to raise £200m of fresh funding to help it through a looming cash crunch. The company, owner of a string of bingo halls and casinos as well as Coral, the bookmaker, wants to free up cash to invest in the business. It has asked Lazard, the investment bank, to come up with a plan. A partial debt-for-equity swap could be one option. Another would be for existing investors to inject more money into the group, the Sunday Times reports.City minister Paul Myners has vowed to fight "tooth and nail" to revise a directive from Brussels that would give the European Union the power to set limits on how much hedge funds are allowed to borrow. The draft legislation has triggered panic in the industry and prompted several senior figures to threaten to leave London unless the legislation is radically altered, the Sunday Times reports.The Sunday Telegraph reports that BP is this weekend closing in on the appointment of a new chairman, a move that would end a near two-year hunt to fill the most prestigious corporate job in Britain. Directors of the oil giant, which is the second-biggest company in the country by market value, are understood to have identified Paul Anderson, an American mining and energy executive, as a leading candidate for the role, although no appointment has yet been agreed and at least one other person remains in the frame.Endemol, the television production company behind Big Brother, is in talks to join a rescue deal designed to avert the collapse of Setanta, the struggling sports broadcaster. Endemol is among a group of new investors which are looking at injecting about £40m in exchange for a controlling stake in Setanta, which has run into trouble after failing to retain two packages of rights to show live Premier League football from the season after next, the Sunday Telegraph reports.