Thursday newspaper round-up: Lloyds Banking, RBS, Clinton Cards

21st May 2009 06:12

The British taxpayer would make a £17.6bn loss if the Government sold out of Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland at today's prices.The figures, compiled by analysts at Exane BNP Paribas, make even a partial sale of the Government's stake in either bank before a general election next spring look highly unlikely. The analysts calculated that the state's holding in Lloyds is £10.9bn underwater and £6.7bn out of the money at RBS, says the Telegraph.The FT adds that Alistair Darling is braced for an order by the European Commission seeking the shrinking of Lloyds Banking as a condition for the granting of state aid. Treasury officials believe Brussels could insist that the bank shrink its balance sheet - possibly through asset disposals - or accept restrictions over its behaviour in the market. Clinton Cards is set today to place two subsidiaries into administration, threatening 2,200 jobs. The struggling gift card retailer will place Birthdays and Thorpalm Greetings Cards into administration, writes the Times.Leading investor groups are calling for company directors in charge of pay policy to stand for re-election every year, as the City steps up its campaign to improve boardroom practice on remuneration. The Co-operative Asset Management, an ethically minded investment group, said that chairmen of remuneration committees in all listed companies should put their jobs to an annual shareholder vote, reports the Times.BMI's chairman is turning to the courts in an effort to force Lufthansa to take over his majority stake in the UK airline, following the German carrier's move to force him to inject more capital into BMI, according to the FT. Mitchells & Butlers, the All Bar One and Harvester operator, is expected to exhibit the scars of the toughest trading period in its history today by reporting a slump in first-half profits of almost 50 per cent, says the Times.Bank of America wants to pay back $45bn in bail-out funds by the end of the year, in a faster-than-expected move made possible by an accelerated programme to raise capital, writes the FT.Michael Spencer, the founder and chief executive of Icap, the City inter-dealer broker, has reduced his stake in the business to 19 per cent from about 21 per cent, according to a Stock Exchange announcement posted after the close last night, reports the Independent.Plans to change how BAA is regulated increase the airport group's headaches. BAA's bondholders have hired investment banking advisers Reynolds Partners amid growing fears that the Government's proposed changes to regulation could cause the airport operator's finances to unravel, according to the Telegraph.Demand for gold continued to rocket in the first quarter of the year, the World Gold Council (WGC) said yesterday, although it is wary investors rather than recession-spooked consumers are fuelling the booming growth, says the Independent.AstraZeneca launched a public relations push to get doctors to prescribe its best-selling psychiatric drug Seroquel for a string of uses that were not approved by safety regulators, according to a damning internal document released yesterday, writes the Independent.