Sunday newspaper round-up: RBS, Women executives, Rio Tinto...

20th Feb 2011 11:00

Stephen Hester, Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive, is poised to indicate this week that the government could start to offload its 83% stake in the bank before the end of the year.RBS is expected to reveal it is still in the red, posting a bottom-line loss of about £700m ? down from £3.6bn last year. It is also likely to write off another £9 billion in bad debts. Hester, however, is planning to stress that the bank is clawing back to recovery, paving the way for a share sale. UK Financial Investments (UKFI), the government body that controls taxpayers' stakes in banks, is likely to attempt to place a small part of its holding later this year, the Sunday Times reports.The G20 nations have agreed a crucial first step on the road to unwinding trade imbalances, despite fears that China's resistance would lead to stalemate. The first meeting of the G20 nations under France's presidency secured a compromise deal on how to measure the trade gaps and surpluses which risk ushering in another financial crisis. At one point, the row between major exporters such as China and debt-laden importers like the US over how fast these trade gaps should be closed threatened to see the negotiations grind to a halt, the Sunday Telegraph reports.Britain's top companies could be obliged to disclose how many women they shortlist for each boardroom vacancy under a government push to get far more female directors into the male-dominated top ranks of the business world. An official review to be delivered to ministers this week by Lord Davies of Abersoch will reject Norwegian-style mandatory quotas for women on boards. But the former Standard Chartered banking boss will propose long-term targets for greater gender diversity, close monitoring and improved transparency in nominating new directors, the Observer reports.Phones 4U could be sold within weeks after BC Partners, the buyout firm, resurrected talks to acquire the mobile-phone retailer for about £700m. BC is understood to have approached Providence Equity Partners, the American investment firm that owns the retail chain, in the past couple of weeks with a sweetened offer. Earlier sale talks between the two were abandoned before Christmas. BC Partners, whose other investments include Intelsat, the satellite group, and the Fitness First gym chain, had been one of a small number of bidders that tried to acquire Phones 4U last year. Despite several months of negotiations, the sale was called off after the two sides failed to come to an agreement on price, reports the Sunday Times.Angry shareholders are urging Rio Tinto to stop hoarding its cash pile after labelling a proposed $5bn (£3bn) return as "pathetic". Investors believe that the mining giant could afford to double the size of its share buyback programme to $10bn after raking in cash from the commodities boom. They are irate after stumping up $15.2bn in a rights issue just 20 months ago to slash Rio's debt and have written to the company voicing their concerns. The dispute threatens to erupt over the next few days in a series of meetings, the Sunday Times reports.British engineering firm Invensys is being stalked by international rivals considering a bid for the company which employs 8,000 people and is valued at £2.7bn. City sources say predators include Honeywell and Emerson Electric of the US, ABB of Switzerland, Alstom of France, Germany's Siemens and two Chinese firms, CSR and CNR. No offer has been tabled, but potential bidders are said to be reviewing their options. If one fires off a bid, a takeover war is likely to erupt, as Invensys is viewed as one of only a handful of medium-sized engineering firms listed on the stock market, making it vulnerable to a bid. Private firms are more difficult to acquire, the Observer reports.Anglo Irish Bank and the Irish Nationwide Building Society, Ireland's two most troubled lenders, were behind a spike in overnight borrowings this week from the European Central Bank, according to people familiar with the transactions. The use of ECB emergency overnight funding jumped to €16bn ($21.9bn) on Thursday far above recent levels, causing commotion in money markets. A person involved in the transaction said the banks were required to swap amounts borrowed under the normal liquidity facility provided by the ECB for more expensive overnight money as a consequence of the preparations for the orderly wind down of the two institutions, which is being overseen by Ireland's Central Bank, the FT reports.Bids for Warner Music, one of the world's top four music firms, are expected to be submitted this week. The company, home to artists like Lily Allen and Frank Sinatra, has hired Goldman Sachs to study its options, which are understood to include a sale of all or part of the business. However, it has also asked the bank to consider whether Warner itself could buy EMI, now under the control of investment bank Citigroup, the Mail on Sunday reports. Waitrose is to try its luck with new franchised stores in South Africa, Australia and the Far East. The supermarket chain has begun talks with potential partners about franchising after a successful export business to these regions. Waitrose already has two stores in Dubai in partnership with Spinneys, a Dubai-based retailer. It opened its first franchised store in Bahrain last week, as well as a company-owned shop in the Channel Islands - in St Saviour, Jersey - the first of five stores that it is opening on the islands, the Sunday Independent reportsA New York hedge fund manager is sitting on an estimated loss of close to £40m after taking an aggressive short position on Ocado, the online grocery company. Elinor Carter Simonds, a managing director of Blue Ridge Capital, made a bet last year that shares in Ocado would fall. The Yale graduate borrowed between 20m and 30m shares when the price was about 130p. She immediately sold the stake in the hope that it would fall in value, which would have netted a big profit for Blue Ridge, the Sunday Times reports.Fears over the strength of the US economic recovery were growing last night after a highly unusual all-night session of the Republican House of Representatives agreed to slash the federal budget by $61bn by the end of September. The deal, thrashed out in the early hours, was immediately condemned by US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who said the cuts would hit the fragile economy, the Sunday Telegraph reports.Mick Davis, the chief executive at mining giant Xstrata, has privately told investors that he still wants to buy FTSE-100 platinum group Lonmin. Xstrata has a 25% stake in Lonmin, the legacy of an aborted £5bn takeover tilt in 2008. There has been feverish speculation ever since over what Xstrata will do with the stake, with some suggestions that the Anglo-Swiss miner would sell the holding. Mr Davis has publicly said that he has "a whole range of options", but he has never committed the company to a particular route, the Sunday Independent reports.Fast-food chain KFC is to replace its 50-year-old claim that its chicken fillets and burgers are "finger-lickin' good" as part of a menu of changes aimed at promoting healthy eating and combatting its negative image. The slogan originated by accident in the 1950s, when franchisee Dave Harman was featured eating chicken in the background of a US TV commercial, the Sunday Telegraph reports