Sunday newspaper round-up: Rolls-Royce, Whitbread, Britvic, LSE

Rolls-Royce has put forward detailed proposals to the government to fill some of the UK's power shortage with a fleet of small reactors built around the company's expertise in generating power for Royal Navy submarines. With the escalating costs and timing of the £18bn Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Somerset, Rolls-Royce believes a series of small modular reactors (SMRs) could form a medium-term solution to Britain’s looming energy crisis, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Whitbread, owner of the Premier Inn hotels and Costa coffee shops chains, will face calls from major shareholders about a potential split of the two parts of the group. Although new chief Alison Brittain is expected to fight any calls for a break-up, the Sunday Telegraph said, she has been reported as saying “there could be circumstances that arise that make it a viable or interesting option”.

Coca-Cola, Britvic and AG Barr and other soft drinks makers have begun to prepare a legal challenge to George Osborne's proposed sugar tax, the Sunday Times reported. After the Chancellor announced the 24p-a-litre anti-childhood obesity measure in his Budget, the soft drinks industry plans to use the European courts to claim the tax is discriminatory because it will not hit other beverages with a high sugar content, such as fruit juices and milkshakes.

Alcoholic drinks makers are also up in arms with the government after new alcohol guidelines recommended men drink only 14 units a week, with a new public health warnings that any drinking increases the risk of illness. The Department of Health's consultation on the new limits ends on Friday and is likely to spark a huge backlash, the Mail on Sunday said.

China’s central bank governor has agreed with the crescendo of concern about the country’s teetering levels of corporate debt, saying that this makes the economy more prone to macroeconomic risk. The Financial Times reported that People’s Bank of China governor Zhou Xiaochuan that China should help remedy this by developing “robust capital markets” and channelling more savings into the corporate sector.

This followed the OECD's warning that countries were now “overloaded on monetary policy” and that central banks cannot haul economies out of stagnation on their own. Chief economist Catherine Mann said banks faced being “squeezed” by the unintended consequences of sub-zero rates in an environment where demand remained subdued, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

The London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Boerse may ask shareholders to vote through their £21bn merger before Britain goes to the polls on 23 June to vote on EU membership, according to the Sunday Times. LSE chairman Donald Brydon has said that if the merger failed to receive competition clearance, it would unravel, but bringing forward the vote will make it before clearance is received from competition regulators.

British American Tobacco has been forced to water down the pay packages for CEO Nicandro Durante and CFO Ben Stevens after an investor revolt. The cigarette maker has looked to avert a potential rebellion the annual shareholder meeting on 27 April, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Despite the government's mooted targeting of tax evaders, a lack of resources at HM Revenue & Customs will leave it unable to use new measures to collect tax from those that have salted it away in offshore schemes. HMRC's efforts will raise just £270m rather than the £1.05bn which had been trumpeted, the Mail on Sunday reported.

FTSE 100 clothing retailer Next will on Thursday reveal results that show a 3% drop in “super-customers” who buy often and more and use high-interest credit. Next’s directory credit business has lost its lustre as consumer finance has eased since the crisis and online retail has grown, said the Sunday Times, but annual profits are still likely to be up around 4.4% to £817m.

A French count has been tipped to become the next chairman of HSBC. Henri, Comte de Castries, 61-year-old boss of French insurer Axa since 2000, was reported as being frontrunner by the Sunday Times, citing a source who said the French company just needed to firm up its succession plans first.

BT is looking at buying out TalkTalk from the pair's TV set-top box software joint venture, YouView. The Sunday Telegraph said it understood BT has begun discussing a bid to take full control of YouView, allowing it to invest more heavily in TV technology and speed decision making.

Ex BP boss Tony Hayward, current chairman of Glencore and Genel Energy, has been speaking to potential backers as he sets up an investment fund to invest in distressed oil and gas assets. Reporting that talks had been held with private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds, the Sunday Times noted that other similar distressed oil trusts have found it hard to agree deals because of big swings in the oil price and seller expectations.

Syrian oil producer Gulfsands Petroleum has attracted the interest of Anglo-Syrian oil tycoon Ayman Asfari, who's ME Investments snapped up a 10.5% stake around two weeks ago, the Sunday Times reported. This purchase came just days before new peace talks began in Switzerland.

Beer keg maker Petainer is lining up a £100m London flotation later this month, as its private equity owners make an exit. With stocktaker Numis running the book, the Sunday Times reported, the profitable former Rexam subsidiary will list on the AIM section.

BHS’s biggest creditor, the state-backed Pension Protection Fund, plans to abstain from the vote on the department store group's company voluntary arrangement (CVA) this week, the Sunday Times reported. BHS needs the approval of 75% of its creditors to proceed with the plan, without which it said it is likely to call in the administrators.