Wednesday newspaper round-up: RBS, Food prices, ITV...

9th Mar 2011 06:43

Nine senior executives of Royal Bank of Scotland are in line to receive £28m, according to the latest disclosure of largesse in the financial sector.Stephen Hester, chief executive of the bank, which is 84%-owned by taxpayers, could earn £7.7m for 2010 including salary, annual bonus and long term incentive plans (LTIPs). That compares to a £13.5m package for Bob Diamond, Barclays' chief executive, over the same period, the Times reports.Food prices are rising more quickly in Britain than in any other Western European country, according to the Organisation for Economic and Co-operation Development. Prices rose by 6.3% in the year to January, the OECD said, higher than in every other country in the eurozone apart from Estonia, where prices climbed by 11.4%. The British Retail Consortium, which bases its figures on surveys of retailers, calculated that food price inflation was a more modest 4.6% in January, adding that it had eased to 4.5% last month, the Times reports.Two of Lloyds Banking Group's most senior board directors are set to leave as part of a shake-up by the bank's new chief executive. Helen Weir, the executive director for retail and Lloyds' most senior female employee, and Archie Kane, the executive director for insurance, are expected to depart, possibly with significant pay-offs, according to people familiar with the matter. The departures could be announced as early as today alongside some important changes to the structure of Lloyds' operations, the Telegraph reports.ITV is paying its newly installed chief executive Adam Crozier more than £1.6m for his first eight months in the job after the beleaguered broadcaster saw its profits treble. According to the broadcaster's annual report, the former head of the Royal Mail was paid a basic salary of £532,000, plus another £334,000 "golden hello" on joining the company. He also received a £252,000 short-term cash bonus and another £505,000 deferred in shares until 2013, the Independent reports.Key parts of a stress test for European banks designed to raise investor confidence in the sector have been softened by regulators despite widespread derision of a similar exercise last year, which was seen by financial markets as too lax. Some of the scenarios under which bank balance sheets will be tested are more benign than the tests that failed to gain investor credibility last year. The new stress test will model the impact of a 15 per cent fall in equity markets on banks - way below the numbers used in the 2010 test, with no discernible toughening of other key parameters, the FT reports.Bupa has written down close to £250m on investments including London's Cromwell hospital as the private healthcare group sounded a warning over the future of elderly care in the UK. The company reported a 72% slump in pre-tax profits to £118m last year, after it took a £249.2m impairment on the Cromwell, its NHS-facing Home Healthcare division and Health Dialog, a US based business, the Telegraph reports.The film studio Pinewood Shepperton hopes to grab a share of the profits of successful British movies, such as The King's Speech, by investing in small budget British films. Pinewood, where the James Bond and Harry Potter films are shot, said it plans to invest as much as a 20% stake in up to four films a year with production budgets of about £2m. It is the first time that Pinewood has planned this type of investment since it was making the Carry On films in the 1970s, the Independent reports.Alan Mulally, Ford Motor's chief executive, and Bill Ford, chairman, have reaped the rewards of the Detroit carmaker's dramatic turnround, between them pocketing shares worth almost $100m. Ford disclosed in regulatory filings it had paid Mr Mulally 3.8m shares worth about $56m before tax. Mr Ford was paid 2.9m shares worth $42m. About 40 per cent of the shares were held back for tax payments. Several other senior executives, including Lewis Booth, chief financial officer, also received big share pay-outs, the FT reports.