Wednesday's newspaper round-up: RBS, Tesco, Lloyds

21st Oct 2014 20:56

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has avoided €115m of fines for alerting the European commission's competition regulator to two attempts to fix the prices of key interest rates, the Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday.The bank, which is 81%-owned by the taxpayer, was hit by £390m last year for manipulating Libor by US and UK regulators but it was granted immunity from a €110m fine after admitting to the commission it had tried to influence Swiss franc interest rates with JP Morgan.The American bank was fined €61.7m - receiving a 40% discount for co-operating with the investigation into Swiss franc Libor-rigging between March 2008 and July 2009.Tesco is set publish the details of its new chief executive's multimillion-pound "golden hello", the Guardian reported.Upon being appointed by the supermarket giant, Dave Lewis was told he would be compensated for the share bonuses he amassed over the course of a 28-year career at Unilever. The details were not published to the stock exchange when his appointment was announced on 21 July, but are set to be revealed after the stricken retail giants announces its half-year results on Thursday.Lewis is expected to be paid an annual salary of £1.25m and £525,000 in lieu of his annual bonus from Unilever, as well as being handed awards of Tesco shares equivalent in value to those he left behind at Unilever.Lloyds Banking Group has said at least 60,000 new homes need to be built in Britain every year above the current level of supply to ease the country's housing shortage, the Financial Times reported.The lender announced it will set up a £50m equity fund in 2015 for smaller house builders to help increase supply, adding it could expand the funding and even work with investment partners or government schemes.Austerity is a virtue for corporates as well. That is the recommendation form analysts at HSBC to Tesco executives. In a report in which they estimate that the grocer's turn-around will take six years and £3bn to implement the broker says the firm should return to its roots.They are referring to founder Jack Cohen's or Wal Mart's frugality. Amongst other measures, they also suggest the company should contemplate reducing the headcount at its head office by several thousands, slash prices, raise wages and introduce austere travel policies, writes The Times.In the third quarter the rate of economic growth in China slipped to its slowest in five years, weighed on by an ailing property sector. Ironically, it was the nation's obsession which helped keep a more serious decline in check.The latest GDP data, when combined with recent weaker readings on other economic indicators, which suggested there are risks of deflation, means the country's leadership is under pressure and the central may be slowly headed towards two 25 basis point interest rate cuts over the next six months, according to economists at Barclays, The Times reports.Speaking to the House of Lords' European economic and financial affairs sub-committee Douglas Flint, HSBC chairman, said regulatory changes aimed at ring-fencing retail deposits, could cost the lender up to £2bn, according to The Times.