Sunday newspaper round-up: United Biscuits, riot fallout, petrol price cuts

14th Aug 2011 19:09

United Biscuits could be broken up as its owners plan to revive attempts to sell the company. The move could see its biscuits business, including the McVitie's brand, separated from its crisps and nuts division, which includes the KP label. The private equity groups Blackstone and PAI Partners have earmarked the end of the year to begin fresh talks about offloading UB, Britain's biggest biscuit producer. They bought the firm in 2006 for £1.6 billion, says the Times.Senior business leaders have warned that last week's riots could send some of Britain's most troubled high streets into a downward spiral if traumatised shopkeepers decide to walk away. Hundreds of stores were looted and in some cases destroyed by fire during the spree of violence and theft that insurers say will cost £200m to mop up, the Observer reports.Tesco is planning to reduce its petrol prices by up to 2p a litre from tomorrow. The supermarket giant is stepping up to the forecourt price war by cutting it's pump price for the second time in a week, the Mail on Sunday reports. The Sunday Express also has a similar report about supermarket petrol prices. Morrisons will up the ante in the petrol forecourt price war today by dropping prices for the second time in a week, putting pressure on rivals to follow suit. The supermarket is today taking an extra 2p a litre off unleaded and diesel across its 296 petrol stations, the paper reports.The Italian motorcycle maker whose bikes are loved by Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Prince William is drawing up plans to float in Hong Kong next year. Ducati, based in Bologna, is owned by the private equity firm Investindustrial, which took control of the firm in 2008 when it was making losses. Since then, Ducati's financial performance has been turned round ? it notched up profits of £79m last year, the Times reports.World Bank chief Robert Zoellick has said that investors have lost confidence in the economic leadership of several key countries, warning global markets were in a "new danger zone" as a result. Zoellick said a convergence of events in the United States and Europe had rattled investors in countries already struggling to cap sovereign debt issues and unemployment, according to the SundayTelegraph.Lord Myners has called on the Government to launch a focused inquiry into so-called "black box" computerised trading in the wake of extreme volatility in the UK's biggest companies. The former City minister said that high-frequency trading also known as black box trading had been a "contributing factor" in the harsh swings which have led to more than £300bn being wiped off the value of British shares since the beginning of July, the Sunday Telegraph reports.A shortage of skilled engineers is threatening to hamper efforts by BP to boost production in the North Sea, a senior executive has said. The oil giant is expected to recruit between 150 and 300 jobs a year but admits that one of its biggest problems is finding the right people with the right skills, says the Independent on Sunday.Ben Sherman, one of Britain's oldest menswear brands, has poached Burberry merchandising chief Adrian Ward-Rees as part of a makeover for the 48-year-old business. Mr Ward-Rees joins the firm as commercial director. The brand, famous for its 1960s Mod associations, wants to do a "Burberry" or a "Mini" and reinvent itself as a top global menswear brand, the Independent on Sunday reports.Quantitative easing (QE) - the Bank of England's recession-busting policy of buying up billions of pounds of bonds - may have contributed to social unrest by exacerbating inequality, according to one City economist. As the Bank of England considers unleashing a fresh round of QE, Dhaval Joshi, of BCA Research, argues the approach of creating electronic money pushes up share prices and profits without feeding through to wages, the Observer says.