Thursday newspaper round-up: RBS, HSBC, VT Group

25th Feb 2010 05:57

The Government has cleared Royal Bank of Scotland to pay its 17,200 investment bankers £1.3bn in bonuses despite losses for the year reaching £5bn across the group. The performance awards equate to £75,000 each and will lift total average earnings to £150,000. In discussions with UK Financial Investments, the body responsible for managing taxpayers' bank stakes, RBS insisted it had to reward staff after a record year for the investment bank. The division is expected to make £6bn of profits this year, says the Telegraph. HSBC has put its train leasing company up for sale with a £2 billion price tag. The bank's decision to auction off its rail division now ? after shelving a sale in 2008 ? signals a significant improvement in the buyout market, which has been bolstered by new bank lending recently, writes the Times.Three of the top institutional investors in VT Group have written to the board to demand they open the company's books to Babcock, the rival defence services company whose advances it has rebuffed, reports the Telegraph.Rules governing takeovers of British companies could be toughened following the launch of a consultation by the Takeover Panel on the code governing mergers and acquisitions.The move comes in the wake of Kraft's contentious £11.6bn takeover of Cadbury, which prompted calls from Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, and Richard Lambert, head of the CBI, the employers' organisation, for a re-examination of takeovers of British companies, according to the FT.Diageo has launched a blistering attack on rival Bacardi, accusing it of leading a "hidden campaign" for commercial gain that would "kill" off a series of lucrative tax excises that the maker of Captain Morgan rum would receive by shifting production from Puerto Rico to the US Virgin Islands, says the Independent.With the economy barely crawling out of recession, a rapid fiscal retrenchment would be treated to a "savage" reaction in foreign exchange markets, according to a new report by strategists at Swiss bank UBS, writes the Telegraph.Michael Grade has been appointed non executive chairman of talent agency James Grant Group (JGG), which looks after TV personalities including Ant and Dec. Mr Grade left his role as executive chairman of ITV last year and joins the media, music and sports agency as non executive chairman with immediate effect, with a mandate to help grow the business, reports the Independent.Coca-Cola is close to buying the North American operations of its largest bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises, for between $13-15bn, in a dramatic reversal of a strategy the soft-drink maker had embraced for more than 20 years, according to the FT.Members of the US Congress tore into the president of Toyota last night, telling him he had put profit before American lives and demanding that the Japanese company ends what they called a culture of secrecy over safety, says the Independent.More than 1,000 staff at Ethel Austin lost their jobs yesterday after the stricken fashion retailer's administrator was forced to close 114 stores, writes the Times.Greece has greatly damaged its chances of an EU bail-out by lashing out at Germany over war-time atrocities and accusing Italy of cooking its books to hide public debt. The escalating dispute came as a general strike in Greece spilled over into violent clashes between hooded youths and riot police in Athens, reports the Telegraph.Established blue-chip brands are benefiting from a "flight to quality" in rocky economic times, according to a survey of 1,700 business people. At the top of the 500-strong league, compiled from the results of the Business Superbrands poll, the fight between Microsoft and Google took another twist as the software group knocked Google down after two years at No 1 and the increasingly battered internet search engine dropped to fifth, says the Independent.The Royal Liver insurance group is to pay up to £7.8 million to compensate thousands of customers who were sold unsuitable pensions or investment products, according to the Times.