Sunday newspaper round-up: Spending cuts, British Airways, House prices

7th Mar 2010 10:21

Alistair Darling will refuse to bow to calls for more aggressive spending cuts in his budget this month and will stick to fiscal plans set out last year.The chancellor's intransigence could put further pressure on the pound. Nervousness over a hung parliament and Britain's ailing public finances drove down sterling last week. Economists fear the lack of new plans to tackle the deficit will do nothing to ease pre-election uncertainties in markets, the Sunday Times reports.Ken Clarke, the shadow business secretary, has pledged to put help for Britain's millions of small and medium-sized enterprises at the heart of the Tories' business manifesto for the general election. Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Clarke said that Labour had failed to encourage private investment into new technologies and that he wanted to simplify regulation and employment law to create more business development opportunities, the Sunday Telegraph reports.A fresh storm has erupted over the refusal of Lloyds Banking Group to disclose how far it is falling short of government lending targets, with theLiberal Democrats preparing to launch a campaign this week to force the bailed-out bank to come clean. Loss-making Lloyds, which is 41%-owned by taxpayers, came under fire when it published its 2009 results last month, for refusing to disclose "net" lending figures that would show whether or not it had met the targets set by the government to keep £11bn of credit flowing during the recession, the Observer reports.Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is severing ties with a number of its smaller company clients and reducing its analysis of the small cap sector in an effort to concentrate on larger, more-profitable businesses. RBS is believed to have made a decision to focus on bigger companies in the FTSE 250, where it thinks it can earn higher fees, the Sunday Independent reports.Hopes of a deal in the British Airways cabin crew dispute were rising last night as the unions offered to take a pay cut. The Unite union and its cabin crew branch put forward a cost-saving plan that would involve taking a 3.5% pay cut and freezing salaries for two years. However, BA boss Willie Walsh is still insisting he plans to slash the number of cabin crew on flights to save the airline £60m a year, the Mail on Sunday reports.Britain's homeowners must brace themselves for 10 years of stagnation, as last year's recovery in the property market gives way to a decade of drift, experts warn. Following news that the number of new mortgages approved fell in January, and house prices declined last month on both the Halifax and Nationwide measures, analysts believe the upturn in the second half of last year has run out of steam, the Observer reports.Collins Stewart is expected to announce that Tim Ingram, the chief executive of Caledonia Investments, is to become its new chairman to replace Terry Smith when the stockbroker delivers full year results next week. Mr Ingram, who became a non- executive director at Collins Stewart in January, retires from Caledonia in July and will take up the new chairmanship around the same time, the Independent reports.The people of Iceland delivered a crushing no vote last night in a referendum on the repayment of billions of pounds lent by Britain and Holland to compensate depositors in a failed Icelandic bank. A higher than expected 93% of voters backed the government's hard line in a vote that attracted a surprising near-60% turnout. People relished a rare opportunity to deliver a direct verdict on the conduct of their government in the country's first referendum since independence in 1944, the Sunday Times reports. John Hargreaves, founder of Matalan, is planning to pay himself a £250m dividend as part of a refinancing of the budget fashion chain. The Monaco-based tax exile is in talks with banks and other investors about a £525m refinancing that would be used to repay Matalan's debt, estimated at £260m. The rest would be used for the bumper dividend to himself, the Sunday Times reports.The European boss of Toyota has said that the company may halt the launch of new cars this year if it is not satisfied that the accelerator problem that forced a mass recall of vehicles has been solved. The Japanese car maker is set to launch the RAV4 2010 model, the 2010 Auris and the Auris Hybrid this year in Europe and a postponement of their production would be a blow to the 4,000 workers at Toyota's plants in Derbyshire and South Wales, the Sunday Telegraph reports.Prudential, the UK's biggest insurer, is to promise British investors explosive growth if they back its proposed $35bn (£23bn) takeover of AIG's Asian business. The Pru's internal estimates indicate the combined business could be eight to 10 times its current size within a decade. The two companies combined would create an Asian insurance giant that would be market leader in fast-growing economies such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, the Sunday Times reports.The Glazer family could nearly triple their money only five years after buying Manchester United if the Red Knights consortium of City financiers pulls off a £1.25bn takeover of the world-famous football club. About £750m would go to the Glazers, who put in £272m when they bought the club in 2005, City sources said. The Florida-based family insisted last week they had no plans to sell, the Sunday Times reports.Britain's third-biggest building society is this weekend in merger talks with a struggling rival in a move that could create a new super-mutual. Coventry has opened discussions with Stroud & Swindon, with a tie-up expected to emerge in the next few weeks. The talks follow a string of recent mergers between Britain's building societies, many of which have been forced to seek a partner because of the pressures of the credit crunch, the Sunday Time reports.