Monday newspaper round-up: DS Smith, Sage, ITV, Lifetime Isa, house prices

One of Britain’s leading captains of industry is to warn the new Brexit minister that he may be forced to relocate his £4 billion UK-based manufacturing group to the Continent if the government does not keep the country within the European single market. In one of the first explicit examples of what Brexit means for British manufacturers, DS Smith, the provider of specialist packaging for Amazon and fast-moving consumer goods groups such as Unilever, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble and the Cadbury group Mondelez, has already diverted tens of millions of pounds of investment out of the UK to a new plant near Frankfurt. - The Times

The data of about 280 customers of Sage Group could have been compromised by a security breach at the maker of accountancy software. The FTSE 100 company said yesterday that it was investigating “unauthorised access to customer information using an internal login”. - The Times

Thousands of gas consumers have been overcharged because energy suppliers have made basic mistakes reading their meters, industry executives have said. Companies have been confusing old imperial gas meters, which measure usage in cubic feet, with newer metric ones, which measure it in cubic meters. - Financial Times

Retail vacancy rates have risen above 10% for the first time since April 2015, according to a quarterly research report published on Monday by the British Retail Consortium and research group Springboard. The rise to 10.1%, from 9.6% in April 2016, is being partly blamed on start-up retail businesses taking short term leases, but then failing to convert them into longer agreements. - The Guardian

The average price of a home in England and Wales has fallen by £3,600 in August so far, as Brexit uncertainty combines with the summer holiday slowdown. The £3,602 month-on-month fall in the price of property coming to market took the average asking price across England and Wales to £304,222, the property website Rightmove said. Despite the decrease, the average asking price is still 4.1% higher than it was a year ago. - The Guardian

ITV’s £1bn bid for Peppa Pig-maker Entertainment One (eOne) and a potential counter approach by the private equity giant KKR face challenges over the company’s use of tax credits, according to City sources. Investment bankers said eOne, which is domiciled in Canada and listed in London, relies on tax incentives designed to boost the Canadian film and television industries. - Telegraph

The planned launch of a new savings account for under-40s in April is in doubt after providers warned that the government’s failure to provide key details means they will not have enough time to hit the deadline. Banks and asset managers are pushing for the Lifetime Isa, or Lisa, to be shelved for a year as wrangling continues between the government and industry over the accounts and their impact on pensions. - Financial Times

The Financial Ombudsman faces the threat of a judicial review over its handling of complaints for payment protection insurance on credit cards after claims that it has refused compensation to thousands of victims of unfair sales. A claims management company is preparing a High Court action that it believes could result in about £85 million of redress for 50,000 people who have been rejected by the ombudsman. The total bill for future claims and for those who have failed to win compensation directly from companies could run to about £1 billion. - The Times

The bosses of European and American corporate giants will be called to Westminster to give evidence about how the UK can beef up it defences against foreign takeovers and potentially bring employee representative on boards. Theresa May’s pledge to create a “proper industrial strategy” that would be “capable of stepping in to defend” important sectors to Britain has raised questions about how changes to laws and British boards could be made. - Telegraph

Supermarket sales have dipped below £100bn for the first time since 2010 as a vicious price war with discounters Aldi and Lidl continues to eat away at the money they make from shoppers’ baskets. The major grocers’ revenues dropped by 3.1pc to £99bn in the last quarter, according to the latest figures from the Share Centre. Sales across the whole of the FTSE 350 also fell by 2.2pc to £341.7bn in the last three months. - Telegraph

The Serious Fraud Office’s criminal investigation into bribery and corruption allegations at Airbus is certain to broaden into an international inquiry by the US Department of Justice, a senior lawyer has warned. Airbus, the Franco-German aircraft manufacturer that employs 11,000 in the UK and provides work for many thousands more in its British supply chain, has admitted failing to provide full disclosure on its use of middlemen — third-party agents who smooth sales in emerging markets. - The Times

British workers reaching retirement have proved to be more prudent than many believed they would be after receiving new pensions freedoms a year ago. The pensions minister at the time, Steve Webb, said pensioners could buy Lamborghinis should they wish to do so after the rules forcing people to buy annuities were swept away in April 2015. This fanned fears that pensioners might blow their cash on cruises or pour it all into buy-to-let properties. - Guardian

Short-sellers have increased their bets on a collapse in the value of several household-name companies, including Ocado and Intu Properties, despite a post-Brexit rally in stock markets as moneymen continue to bet on big falls in everything from supermarkets to property. Simon Colvin, of Markit, which compiled the figures, said the data showed that instead of Brexit acting as a break on shorters, with the market rally forcing them to close out their positions, many appeared to have doubled down. - The Times

The Brexit vote has made businesses more pessimistic about their chances of success in the next 12 months and bosses have become less confident about hiring staff, two surveys show. The proportion of employers expecting to increase staffing levels over the next three months has fallen from 40% before the referendum to 36%, according to a study of more than 600 businesses published on Monday by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and employment agency Adecco. Meanwhile, a separate survey of 170 chief executives by accountants Grant Thornton found that 49% of respondents were less confident about the year ahead, while only 8% felt more confident. - Guardian

The world’s largest negligence case against an auditor has begun hearing court submissions in the US state of Florida in which PwC is being sued for $5.5 billion in damages over the bankruptcy of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, a mortgage company. It is argued that negligent auditing of TBW contributed to the collapse of Colonial Bank during the world financial meltdown at the end of the past decade. - The Times