Tuesday newspaper round-up: Royal Bank of Scotland, Ryanair, Marks & Spencer

2nd Feb 2010 06:34

Bosses at the Royal Bank of Scotland have decided to press ahead with plans that allow top performers to effectively collect large cash bonuses despite a political and public backlash about bank pay.RBS wrote to investors yesterday detailing the bank's complicated pay deal under which bankers will receive their bonuses entirely in shares - but are able to convert a large portion into cash within just 12 weeks, the Telegraph reports.High earners will cost the public purse hundreds of millions of pounds through tax dodges as they avoid the new 50p rate of income tax, a minister indicated yesterday. Lord Myners, the City Minister, said that the Treasury had "significantly reduced" its estimate of the revenue to be earned from the historic change. He cast doubt on whether the Treasury would pocket the £1.13bn it has earmarked for 2010, and the £2.5bn it hopes to raise in 2011, the Times reports.Ryanair has admitted that it cut fares to record lows in the run-up to Christmas to keep passengers flying and has conceded that its glory days of high growth have ended. Latest figures reveal that, in its pre-new year trading quarter, Ryanair passengers refused to pay on average more than €30 a ticket and cut baggage payments and in-flight spending. The 12% fall in average fares was exacerbated by a slowdown in other spending by passengers, down 20%per head to €7.46, which was "primarily due to lower excess baggage revenues," the airline said, the Times reports.Marks & Spencer has extended a £15m welcome to Marc Bolland, its new chief executive. Mr Bolland was finally released by Wm Morrison, his former employer, allowing M&S to issue him a start date and detail a bumper reward package to compensate the Dutchman for Morrisons shares that were due to vest as part of his incentive plan. On top of a £975,000 salary, Mr Bolland will earn annual bonuses and exceptional awards of up to £6.3m, the Times reports.Goldman Sachs yesterday denied claims reported by The Times that Lloyd Blankfein, its chief executive, could be paid as much as $100 million for 2009. The investment bank said that while the board had not made final decisions on executive pay, it "beggared belief" that directors would award Mr Blankfein "anything close" to $100m, the Times reports.The Conservative Party has recruited Lord Stern, the economist hired by Tony Blair to report on the impact of global warming, to help create Britain's first environmentally-friendly investment bank. The influential author of the Stern Review will help create the Conservative vision of a bank designed to channel public and private money into funding green business plans and technologies. Bob Wigley, the chairman of Yell Group and former boss of Merrill Lynch in Europe, is also joining the working group for the bank, the Telegraph reports.South Korea's National Pension Service, the world's fifth-largest pension fund, plans to take a 12% stake in Gatwick airport next week, stressing that investment in Britain will play a significant role in quadrupling its international exposure. The NPS, which is aiming to expand its overall portfolio from $240bn (£150bn) to $400bn by 2014, came to the attention of Britain's financial community last year when it bought the headquarters of HSBC in Canary Wharf for £773m in cash, the FT reports.Executives caught up in crackdowns on cartels will face the threat of compensation claims from their employers if Safeway wins a landmark legal case it has launched against its former chairman and 10 other ex-staff. The supermarket, now owned by Wm Morrison, has taken High Court action to recoup a fine of up to £16.4m it faces for allegedly conspiring with other retailers illegally to set the prices of dairy products, the FT reports.BNP Paribas has sold Artemis, the UK fund management boutique, to a combination of 17 Artemis fund managers and Affiliated Management Group of the US. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, ends two years of uncertainty for Artemis. It was first put on the block in 2008 by Fortis, the Belgo-Dutch bank that had acquired a majority stake in the UK business from ABN Amro the year before, the FT reports.The fate of the British edition of the age-old Reader's Digest magazine remained uncertain last night after the UK pension regulator refused to approve a deal to reduce its £125m pension deficit. The future of the 72-year-old periodical - which employs 135 people in offices in London and Swindon - was thrown into doubt after the UK Pensions Regulator said it would not sign-off on a plan by the magazine's US parent company to inject £10.9m and one-third of the UK business into the pension fund, the Times reports.British shopkeepers could suffer a "relapse" into deteriorating trading conditions this year, as rising taxes, interest rates and the uncertainty over the next government's economic policy takes its toll on consumer spending. The KPMG/Synovate Retail Think Tank, which had predicted the improvement in its Retail Health Index to continue into the first quarter of this year, has warned of "dark clouds gathering on the horizon" and that consumers will make 3% fewer shopping trips this year, the Independent reports.