Sunday newspaper round-up: Renminbi, GSK's pipeline, Brexit worry,
China’s currency, the renminbi, could be promoted to the International Monetary Fund’s list of global reserve currencies this week, sending an estimated $1trn (£650bn) of reserves flowing into the yuan. The momentous decision would give fresh impetus to Beijing's reform efforts, the Sunday Times said, though the decision would not take effect until next October. “Anything less than [full inclusion] would be a source of instability for the Chinese currency,” said David Lubin, head of emerging market economics at Citi.
If if exits the European Union, Britain's agricultural industry will be destroyed by a wave of debt foreclosures by banks, land prices will crash and further discord will be again threaten the union between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This is what will happen if Britain votes to leave the EU next year, according to a confidential 70-page report issued to clients by the specialist consultants Agra Europe revealed by the Sunday Telegraph, with British farmers losing virtually all of the EU subsidies and environmental subsidies that currently makes up 60% of their income.
Andrew Witty, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, will this week attempt to convince major investors of his strategy for the pharmaceutical company’s drug pipeline to combat a slowing in growth from its existing products. An investor meeting in New York on Tuesday will be the first time in 12 years the company has given extensive details of drugs it is developing, the Sunday Times reported, with several institutional investors suggesting Witty had one last chance to get it right and avoid the axe.
The Bank of England will hold a “war game” next week to simulate whether the networks used by the City of London banks can withstand a concerted cyber-attempt by hackers. Governor Mark Carney has become increasingly concerned over the broader repercussions of a cyber attack on the banking system, the Sunday Times reported, with the test determining whether cash machines and electronic payment systems would be able to continue operating during a heavy cyber attack.
Plans for Metro Bank to float on the London Stock Exchange may be delayed in favour of another private fundraising. The challenger bank’s founder Vernon Hill, who had reportedly appointed Goldman Sachs Group, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Royal Bank of Canada as advisers ahead of a planned share sale next year, told the Sunday Telegraph that he would talk to other investors to “see whether they’re more interested in another round of private or to do a float”.
Greece’s four main banks have until Friday to tell the European Central Bank how they will cover a freshly revealed €14.4bn (£10.2bn) shortfall of capital they would need to survive a further economic downturn. The ECB’s stress-tests have determined the amount, with a “baseline” scenario assuming Greece returns to growth in 2017 still identifying a requirement for €4.4bn of fresh capital, the Sunday Times reported the ECB as saying. Analysts were relieved the hole was not even bigger.
BT Group has emerged as one of the favourites to acquire Channel 4, along with US-based Discovery Communications, as the UK government looks to privatise the free-to-air broadcaster. Private equity firm Risk Capital Partners, led by former Channel 4 chairman Luke Johnson, has also approached several potential backers over a £1bn-plus bid, according to the Sunday Telegraph. A sale to a US buyer such as Discovery could prove politically challenging, Whitehall sources admitted, while BT already has strong commercial ties as Channel 4 sells advertising for BT Sport.
The agreement of the £65bn merger between SAB Miller and AB InBev this week could result in beer brands Bass and Boddingtons owned by the pair becoming available, which has caught the attention of acquisition-thirsty cider maker C&C Group. After last year’s failure to snap up the Spirit pubs group and recent poor interim results, the Dublin-listed brewing group will look to buy the beers for £30m each, the Sunday Times reported.
FTSE 100 aerospace group GKN has called on the government for a sizeable loan handout to help it develop parts for Airbus’s new A380 superjumbo. The pair have asked Whitehall for an “repayable launch investment” (RLI), according to the Sunday Times, to back the revamping of A380 to make it more fuel-efficient and popular with carriers.
The government’s increase in stamp duty on more expensive homes from last winter has resulted in the Treasury receiving less than expected, while Europe’s Mortgage Credit Directive new rules on overseas buyers has already seen some providers pull out of the market. Stamp duty revenue is down almost 10% from property sales in London's richest boroughs of Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham, according to analysis by Knight Frank for the Mail on Sunday of the first seven months of this year, where the value of property bought and sold fell by almost a third. The sector will be hit next year by new European Union rules on foreign buyers.
Atlantic Superconnection, a UK company set up by Duke Street Capital’s Edmund ‘Edi’ Truell and ex Conservative energy minister Charles Hendry has begun talks about building a cable from Iceland to the UK to supply electricity generated from lava. Truell, newly appointed pensions and investment adviser to London Mayor Boris Johnson, is closer to building the world’s longest undersea power cable after Prime Minister David Cameron last week formed a taskforce to negotiate the terms of a potential financial aid package for the £5bn, 1,000-mile power line under the Atlantic, with an agreement hoped for by next May.
Morrison's has claimed it will become the first of the Big Four food retailers to go head‑to‑head with high street “designer” sandwich chains by launching a range that would be freshly made in-store. The Scotsman reported that Morrisons would train a 1,000-strong “sarnie army” of staff to make sandwiches from scratch, using ingredients from the stores’ Market Street areas rather than being bought pre-made, with the aim of slicing a bigger slice of the UK’s £2.8 billion sandwich market.
Meanwhile, the supermarket group also announced it will give away all its surplus food to charity instead of throwing it in the bin, the Sunday Telegraph reported. Morrisons has become the UK's first supermarket to donate all unsold food to local community groups helping those in need.