Sunday newspaper round-up: Rolls-Royce, BP, AIM...

7th Nov 2010 10:12

Rolls-Royce, the embattled aero-engine maker, is under further pressure this weekend after one of its rivals accused it of infringing a patent.America's Pratt & Whitney filed lawsuits in Connecticut and London's High Court late on Friday claiming Rolls unlawfully copied the design of a fan blade in two of its engines. Pratt separately complained to the International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington, seeking a ban on American imports of Rolls-Royce engines. A ban would stop Rolls shipping its Trent 1000 engines across the Atlantic for Boeing's new 787 passenger jet, the Sunday Times reports.Bob Dudley, the new chief executive of BP, is plotting a shake-up of the oil giant that will halve its $10bn (£6bn) annual dividend and reinvent it as a smaller, high-growth company. The American took over five weeks ago with a mandate to revive BP after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill pushed it to the brink of collapse. He will unveil his plan at the annual strategy presentation in February, the Sunday Times reports.The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is examining the regulation of online discussion boards after a string of oil & gas firms handed over files claiming market manipulation and personal threats. It is believed that up to half-a-dozen firms listed on the lightly regulated Alternative Investment Market (AIM) have complained to the FSA. They believe that anonymous individuals are talking down the stock on the forums, so that the price falls and they can make money by short selling the shares, the Sunday Independent reports.The European-made Typhoon fighter is winning the fight for the $11.5bn (£7.1bn) contract to supply 126 fighters to the Indian Air Force in a deal worth $5 billion and 2,000 new jobs to Britain. The multi-role combat aircraft, manufactured by a joint venture between Britain's BAE Systems, Italy's Alenia Aeronautica and the German-Spanish giant EADS, has come top in the Indian Air Force's technical assessment of rival bids, beating the American F16 and F18s, the Russian MiG 35 and its closest rival, the French Dassault Rafale, the Sunday Telegraph reports.The retail billionaire Sir Philip Green is to close 300 shops ? equivalent to 15% of the Arcadia empire ? within three years. Details of Green's plan emerged at a retail property conference in Manchester last week. Some 500 leases, mainly on the group's smaller shops in provincial towns, are due for renewal in the next three years. Arcadia, owner of Topshop and BHS, admitted that it will use the opportunity to reorganise its portfolio of 2,400 stores, potentially giving up 300 small shops, the Sunday Times reports.Eon, the German power company, is in advanced talks to sell Britain's second-largest electricity distribution network to a group of foreign investors for up to £3.5bn. The deal would be the latest in a rash of takeovers of key parts of Britain's energy and transport infrastructure. Last week Canadian pension funds paid £2.1bn for the high-speed rail line that links London to the Channel tunnel, and earlier in the year, London's electricity network was sold to Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong's richest man, for £5.8bn, the Sunday Times reports. A secretive British mortgage company established by failed US investment bank Lehman Brothers is back in profit - thanks in part to the scores of repossessions it pushes through the courts each week. Capstone, which has 80,000 UK borrowers with mortgages totalling £7bn, also profits from punitive charges it repeatedly inflicts on customers, vastly inflating their arrears. These charges include hundreds of pounds applied on top of arrears and interest under the guise of 'arrears management fees' (£85), 'litigation management fees' (£115), 'referral to solicitors fees' (£50) and others, the Mail on Sunday reports.Allan Leighton, the former chairman of Royal Mail, directly questioned whether James Murdoch should remain chairman of BSkyB when it was revealed that News Corporation had made a $12.5bn (£7.7bn) bid to wholly own the satellite broadcaster in June. Mr Leighton, the company's second-longest serving non-executive director, is understood to have asked Mr Murdoch, head of News Corp's Europe and Asia businesses, if he would be standing down as a result of the bid, the Sunday Telegraph reports.Royal Mail has secretly demanded cost cuts of at least 20% from its suppliers in a desperate bid to shore up the company's worsening cash position ahead of a planned privatisation. The top 150 suppliers were summoned to a meeting in central London nine days ago, billed as a chance to meet Moya Greene, the new chief executive. After Greene spoke, Kath Harmeston, group procurement director, stunned the audience by presenting a plan for drastic cuts, the Sunday Times reports. Train operators are pushing for easyJet-style extremes in ticket pricing with radical proposals likely to meet fierce opposition from passengers' groups. East Coast and Virgin Trains, the UK's largest long-distance train companies, want to mirror the airline industry by charging higher prices for in-demand services, while lowering fares for less crowded trains, the Observer reports.Dozens of UK computer game retailers will open at midnight on Tuesday to queues of avid fans awaiting the latest title in the hugely successful Call of Duty video game series. Major US retailer GameStop claims pre-orders for Call of Duty: Black Ops have broken all records. Its publisher, Activision, is expecting the title to perform even better than last year's predecessor, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which sold over 20m copies worldwide, earning an estimated £1bn in revenue, the Observer reports.Helaba and Landesbank Berlin are financing Oxford Properties' purchase of a £200m stake in Nomura's London HQ, as German banks ramp up their UK property exposure. The two regional banks are in advanced talks with Oxford to provide £170m of loans secured against the 541,000 sq ft Watermark Place scheme on the north bank of the Thames, the Sunday Independent reports.