Sunday newspaper round-up: Britvic, Prices of UK homes, BT Group

Aviva, one of the ten largest shareholders in Britvic, thinks that Carlsberg needs to raise its takeover offer. During the preceding week, Britvic had let it be known that it had already rebuffed two acquisition offers from the Danish brewer, the highest of which had been for £3.1bn. In particular, Aviva said that Carlsberg was not taking sufficiently into account how Britvic's finances were expected to improve over the next few years. - The Financial Mail on Sunday

The prices of UK homes were roughly 8% too expensive relative to Britons' earnings during the first three months of the year, according to property website Zoopla. At £264,900, the typical price of a home had been roughly unchanged over the preceding 12 months until May, but was expected to increase by 1.5% or £3,900 over the course of 2024. At the end of 2023 home prices had been 13% too costly, in part as a result of a spike in mortgage rates. - The Financial Mail on Sunday

Private equity outfit TDR Capital has appointed Houlihan Lokey and Morgan Stanley to run an auction for BPP, the training course outfit that it owns. TDR is looking to fetch in excess of £2.5bn for the company. Nevertheless, one industry source doubted that BPP would go for for more than £2bn. The sales process is expected to begin after the summer, when investors will have more information regarding BPP's autumn intake of students. - The Sunday Times

BT is threatening to cut broadband rivals' access to its network on account of lazy engineers not filling in crucial forms. The former telecoms monopoly alleges that smaller broadband providers are not providing the necessary information about where they plan to access its ducts and poles. They will be given three months to boost their compliance to 90%. It comes as dozens of broadband rivals, known as 'alt-nets' race to deploy their own full-fibre networks across the country. - The Sunday Telegraph