Thursday newspaper round-up: RBS, ECB, Next, OBR, Thomas Cook

4th Aug 2011 06:06

The Financial Times reports that RBS is to shed 2,000 investment banking jobs. John Hourican, head of RBS's global banking and markets division, said a smaller, more focused business would deliver more stable profits, according to the paper.The European Central Bank is expected to signal it is stepping into the eurozone debt crisis on Thursday by reopening its purchases of government debt, amid fears the turmoil will claim the economy of a nation that is "too big to bail". Officials on Wednesday night said the ECB's monthly meeting was expected to see a reversal on the buying of sovereign bonds after 18 weeks of staying out of the markets, because of an EU institutional vacuum that threatens to drag down Italy and Spain, the region's third and fourth-largest economies, says the Telegraph.The chief executive of Next offered a boost to embattled UK consumers yesterday, predicting that there would be no further increases in its clothing prices for spring 2012, as cotton inflation and manufacturing capacity constraints in the Far East ease. Lord Wolfson of Aspley Guise also said he thought the recent doom and gloom in the retail sector had been"exaggerated", as the fashion and homewares giant posted a resilient set of first-half results, the Independent reports.The head of the Government's fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, has all but admitted that the official growth target for this year, announced in George Osborne's March Budget, will be missed, and that current growth could be "relatively weak". Robert Chote, chairman of the OBR, indicated in an interview with The Independent that the Chancellor will almost inevitably downgrade growth again when he makes his Autumn Statement - the fourth such cut since Alistair Darling delivered the last Budget of the Labour government in 2010. The chairman of Thomas Cook is facing shareholder pressure to bring forward his retirement after the abrupt resignation of the travel group's chief executive yesterday. Michael Beckett, who is due to step down at February's annual meeting, has come under fire for his handling of the company, culminating in a recent shareholder revolt over executive bonuses and a slump in trading that led to the exit of Manny Fontenla-Novoa, reports the Times.Consumers are spending on average £140 a year too much for their broadband packages, according to new research. Nearly 60% of bill payers have not changed providers in the last year, while 25 per cent have never switched supplier at all, according to comparison website, uSwitch.com, the Daily Mail says.