Friday newspaper round-up: SoftBank, Tesco/Unilever, US banks exodus

SoftBank and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund are preparing to launch a new tech fund that will manage as much as $100bn, in a move that will create one of the largest tech investment funds in the world. The new fund, dubbed the SoftBank Vision Fund, will be based in London and seeded with $25bn from SoftBank and up to $45bn from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund over the next five years, according to a statement from Masayoshi Son’s Japanese telecoms group. – Financial Times

Tesco will once again sell Marmite online after the grocer ended a 24-hour stand-off with Unilever over proposed price rises that foreshadowed inflationary pressures analysts say will be inescapable if sterling continues its fall. Britain’s biggest supermarket had refused to comply with Unilever’s proposed increasesand instead pulled dozens of products — including Marmite spread and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream — from its website, provoking a public storm over the High Street consequences of June’s Brexit vote. – Financial Times

The French finance minister, Michel Sapin, has said that US banks have told him they will move some activities out of Britain to other European countries in the wake of the referendum decision to leave the EU. Sapin said that until now US banks had adopted a wait-and-see approach towards their British investments. – Guardian

Women get paid less than men at every stage in their careers but the gender pay gap is widest during their 50s, according to new analysis. The pay gap begins as soon as women start working and is at its greatest when a woman turns 50, with female employees cumulatively £85,040 worse off than men over the next decade, according to TUC analysis of figures from the Office for National Statistics. – Guardian

An outspoken investor backed by one of Britain’s richest fund managers has launched an attack on William Hill’s proposed £5bn tie-up with Amaya, branding the talks a waste of time that risk damaging the British bookmaker. Parvus Asset Management, whose backers include Sir Chris Hohn of the Children’s Investment Fund, said it was the largest owner of William Hill, with 14.3pc of its shares. – Telegraph

Britain is in danger of misreading the political landscape in Europe and faces the possible loss of its reserve currency status if it fails to secure full access to the European single market, Standard & Poor’s has warned. The powerful US rating agency said the British government is treading into hazardous waters in negotiations with the EU and is risks serious damage to economy’s future growth trajectory, with long-term implications for the debt profile and the country’s credit-worthiness. - Telegraph

The billionaire Jim Ratcliffe is bidding to acquire assets in the North Sea owned by Royal Dutch Shell as his Ineos chemicals group steps up efforts to become a leading player in Britain’s struggling offshore oil industry. Bids were submitted on Wednesday for several oil and gas projects, including a stake in the Buzzard field which formed part of Shell’s recent acquisition of BG Group. – The Times

Fears that stock market investors were staging a “buyers’ strike” grew yesterday after a second company in a week scrapped its flotation and a third was hanging in the balance. TI Fluid Systems, an automotive engineer, said that its €600 million float would not proceed “due to market conditions”. – The Times