Thursday newspaper round-up: Lloyds, National Express, Best Buy

29th Oct 2009 06:01

Lloyds Banking Group will begin sounding out investors about launching a £25bn capital raising to withdraw from the state insurance scheme for its toxic debts. The Government and other Lloyds shareholders are due to see the bank amid fears that its crumbling share price has thrown the planned £11bn rights issue into jeopardy, writes the Telegraph.National Express, the beleaguered transport group, has walked away from a last-gasp merger with rival Stagecoach over concerns that competition regulators could derail a deal. The shock move emerged late last night as Stagecoach awaited a decision on whether it would be allowed to access National Express books, the Times says.The world's largest electricals retailer, Best Buy, is to create 8,000 jobs in the UK over the next five years and is gearing up to open its first stores this coming spring, taking on Currys and Comet. The electricals retailer plans to open about 100 stores, sized between 25,000 and 60,000 square feet, in Europe over the next three years, of which about 80 will be in the UK, according to the Independent.The Globe Pub Company is on the brink of being placed into administrative receivership, according to a company source. Zolfo Cooper has been lined up as receiver to the Robert Tchenguiz-owned group. An announcement could be made as early as today, the source added, the Times says. The decline in beer sales is stabilising in the UK, but any recovery could be hit by measures in the Government's pre-Budget report next month. The British Beer & Pub Association said that total UK beer sales fell by just 0.8 per cent in the third quarter, year on year, which is a marked improvement on the 4.8 per cent slump in the second quarter, writes the Independent.Blackstone's plans to reduce Hilton Hotels' $20bn (£12.8bn) debt pile has reignited concern over Ladbroke's exposure to the struggling hotel chain. The private equity giant is talking to lenders in an attempt to cut $5bn of debt as part of a complex restructuring which could see it inject as much as $800m of new equity into the business. It comes just two years after the $26bn takeover of the hotel chain, writes the Telegraph.Slaughter and May could lose its crown as the Government's preferred legal adviser on the banking crisis. In the biggest legal shake-up since the bank bailouts started two years ago, the Treasury is asking other firms to tender for the business, the Times says.A consortium of utility companies is planning to build a giant nuclear power station at Sellafield, the former home of the world's oldest reactor, as part of Britain's next generation of cleaner energy sources. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said yesterday that it had sold the right to develop the land for a 3.6 gigawatt station to Scottish and Southern, Iberdrola and GDF Suez for £70m, writes the Telegraph.