Wednesday newspaper round-up: Tesco may bid for Northern Rock

1st Jul 2009 06:19

Tesco has emerged as a potential bidder for Northern Rock as the Government races to sell the state-owned lender before a general election, The Times has learnt.The supermarket chain has shown provisional interest in buying the bank nationalised as the credit crisis brought the financial system within hours of collapse. Virgin, which tried to buy Northern Rock at the time, has expressed renewed interest and private equity funds have made inquiries.National Express, the embattled transport group, has been rocked by the surprise resignation of Richard Bowker, its highly regarded chief executive. Bowker's departure, which is expected to be confirmed in a trading update today, comes at a torrid time for the company. It has reached an impasse in crucial negotiations with the Government over the future of its East Coast rail operations and this week received an unwanted bid approach from First Group, its larger rival, the Times reports.Veteran British banker Sir Win Bischoff is being lined up as the next chairman of Lloyds Banking Group, according to people close to the process.The 67-year-old former chairman of Citigroup, who stepped down from the role in February, has been asked by UK Financial Investments to take the Lloyds job and steer it through the process of integrating HBOS, which it rescued last autumn, the FT writes.French plans to lead a nuclear power renaissance in Britain have been dealt a major blow after regulators warned of serious reservations about the safety of the reactor technology earmarked for use. The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) has written to EDF and Areva, the French companies that want to build four reactors in the UK, to express their concerns about the technology, the Times writes.Senior ministers, regulators and bankers have outlined sweeping reforms of the UK financial system. The reforms will redraw the "social contract" between banks and the public. Lenders will have to behave more responsibly, simplify their operations and accept lower profits in return for implicit taxpayer support, the Telegraph reports. Lord Myners has attacked bankers' pay and said that schemes based on share price performance led to excessive risk-taking. The Treasury Minister's comments may put him on a fresh collision course with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which last week unveiled a remuneration package for Stephen Hester, its chief executive, the Times writes.Mike Darcey, the chief operating officer of BSkyB, said the Government, regulators and public service broadcasters were responsible for creating a "culture of dependency" that has led to the problems facing free-to-air broadcasters, the Telegraph reports.A BP-led consortium on Tuesday won a deal to develop Iraq's largest oilfield - the only successful foreign bid in a historic televised auction. International oil companies were put off by the Iraqi oil ministry's demands that they cut the fee they collect on every barrel extracted over 20-year contracts, the Telegraph reports.Official figures on Tuesday confirmed the UK had suffered its worst slump in output for 50 years. Economists warned Britain would almost certainly have to wait at least two years before it regained the output lost over the past year.The figures showed a 2.4% quarter-on-quarter fall in gross domestic product for the first three months of 2009 - much sharper than the 1.9% initially calculated, the FT reports.BAE Systems, Europe's biggest defence contractor, has missed out on a billion-dollar contract to provide mine-resistant offroad vehicles to the US Army. The Department of Defense announced on Tuesday that it had awarded the $1.1bn contract to Oshkosh, a Wisconsin-based vehicle manufacturer, and one of BAE's competitors, the FT reports.Directors of Keydata Investment Services, where administrators believe £103m ($169m) of private investors' money may have gone missing, paid themselves £7.9m in the two years prior to the company coming under investigation by the Financial Services Authority. Filings at Companies House show that three directors - Stewart Owen Ford, chief executive, Craig McNeil, company secretary, and Mark John Owen - received £3.7m in the year to September 2008 - even though the company reported just £2,004 profit on £15.7m of turnover, the FT writes.The influential shareholder advisory body Pirc has thrown its weight behind the campaign to force Marks & Spencer to find a compromise deal over the executive chairman Sir Stuart Rose's leadership of the high-street bellwether.Pirc yesterday recommended that shareholders vote to re-elect Sir Stuart, whose dual role is a breach of best-practice corporate governance, but only based on the resolution proposed by the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum, reports the Independent.