Wednesday newspaper round-up: Autumn Statement, UK food prices, Schlumberger...

3rd Dec 2014 06:49

UK Chancellor George Osborne is expected to use Wednesday's Autumn Statement to deliver a near financial injection to Britain's economy by boosting small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) with nearly £1bn. Osborne is predicted to hand an additional £400m over to the British Business Bank and more funding for the Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme, which would allow up to £500m in new lending for the 2015-16 fiscal year, according to The Telegraph.BRC and Nielsen data has shown that food prices fell 0.2% in November compared with the same month last year, the first time this has happen in eight years, "as supermarkets wage a bitter discounting war and the cost of everyday ingredients plunges on the commodity markets", The Times says.The world's biggest oil services group, Schlumberger, is set to slash its fleet for offshore geological surveys and will take an $800m writedown on the value of its vessels. The marks the first major cutdown in the industry fallout following the recent crude price drop, the Financial Times reported.Shares in a number of companies involved in the South Stream project dived across Europe after Russia abandoned the $50bn gas pipeline across the Black Sea into Europe, the Financial Times says. Countries such as Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary reacted with shock and anger, saying they had received no advance warning despite having substantial financial and political capital invested, the paper said.Aviva has admitted that there could be job losses when it takes over rival Friends Life in a £5.6bn deal, The Scotsman writes. Chief executive Mark Wilson said it was still "way too early" to estimate the scale of any cutbacks, but said: ""There may be some duplication in roles and headcount reduction,"".The Financial Times writes that Morgan Stanley "is being credited with the most audacious 'deal steal' seen in years" after a last-minute "snaffling" of a $4.7bn placement Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse presumed they had secured. The deal involved a private placement of shares in Chinese insurer Ping An.Harris + Hoole, the coffee shop chain part-owned by Tesco, has made a £12.8m annual loss after an rapid expansion which doubled its position to 45 outlets, according to The Guardian.The Telegraph has reported that ad agency WPP has signed a $1.25bn (£800m) deal over cloud-computing with US tech giant IBM. "The seven-year agreement will allow the British marketing firm, led by Sir Martin Sorrell, to bring together the operations of more than 300 agencies it has bought up over the past decade," the paper said.