Tuesday newspaper round-up: Brexit meeting, Carney, BRC, City tax bill

The City of London will not get any special treatment in the upcoming Brexit negotiations, senior members of Theresa May’s Cabinet have told a group of high-profile banking and insurance chiefs. Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, and David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, told a group of City leaders that, despite accounting for 11.8pc of gross domestic product (GDP), financial and professional services is only one industry and cannot be seen to be treated differently. - Daily Telegraph

Yet Hammond and Davis promised financial services chiefs a “smooth and orderly transition” when Britain leaves the EU, as pressure mounts for an interim deal to smooth the exit. Mr Davis, who has expressed scepticism about such a deal, was said by one participant to be “not dismissive” of the idea. - Financial Times

Warning that the UK was suffering its “first lost decade since the 1860s”, the governor of the Bank of England said that one of the reasons for the Brexit vote was a sense among people that they had lost control of their futures. Mark Carney also used his first big speech since Donald Trump swept to power in the US to warn that open markets are under threat and that politicians must do more to share out the gains of global trade and the rise of technology. - Guardian

According to the latest data from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG, comparable retail sales were up by 0.6 per cent in November, an improvement on the same time last year, when like-for-like sales fell by 0.4 per cent. On a total basis, sales rose 1.3 per cent last month against a 0.7 per cent increase last November. - The Times

A record one in four pounds was spent online during last month's Black Friday discounting drive, according to the BRC. Online sales of non-food items, which includes homewares and clothing, represented 27.6pc of all total non-food sales in the UK during November, against 25.3pc the year before. - Telegraph

Britain’s financial services industry paid the Treasury £71.4bn in taxes in the most recent financial year, beating its pre-credit crunch level for the first time. Tax payments dived in the recession as banks and other finance firms made huge losses, then took years to recover to their previous size. - Telegraph

Plans by Italian banks to raise nearly €20 billion of new funds are in limbo after the country voted overwhelmingly against reforms to its constitution. Shares in both Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena and UniCredit fell by nearly 4 per cent as markets assessed the impact of Italy’s referendum in the first trading session since the result was announced. - The Times

Deutsche Telekom has attacked the UK telecoms regulator Ofcom over what it describes as the “extreme” measures proposed for the legal separation of BT from its Openreach infrastructure division. The German operator, which holds a 12 per cent stake in its British counterpart, has argued any move to force a legal or full separation of BT and Openreach would make the UK “less investable” and would be “completely at odds” with Ofcom’s reputation as an evidence-based regulator. - Financial Times

In November, usually one of the slower months in the showroom calendar, 184,101 new cars were registered, up 2.9 per cent on the same month last year. In an accelerating trend in the industry, more than a quarter of the year-on-year growth is attributed to sales of electric and hybrid vehicles. - The Times

British American Tobacco’s takeover of Reynolds American is poised to move a step closer when the FTSE 100 cigarette maker sweetens its offer to $56.5 a share for the maker of Camel and Newport cigarettes this week. The Dunhill and Lucky Strike owner owns 42.2 per cent of Reynolds and in October announced an offer to buy the rest of America’s second-biggest tobacco group, which was rebuffed. - The Times

BP has begun experimental drilling in a group of potential gasfields in the North Sea. In a move that the industry hopes could be the first stage of a recovery in the region, BP will test the potential of a deep carboniferous era horizon about 50 miles east of Hull, below an existing field. - The Times

BHP Billiton has narrowly edged out BP to win the right to develop a potentially lucrative deepwater oil project in Mexico. After what Pedro Joaquín Coldwell, Mexico’s energy secretary, called the “mother of all auctions” in the country’s oil and gas industry, the Australian mining and natural resources group confirmed that it had won the right to develop an offshore license known as Trión. - The Times

The cost of a can of cola, lemonade or Red Bull is likely to rise by about 8p, while a two-litre bottle of any high-sugar soft drink will go up by 48p once the government’s sugar levy comes into force. Details of the levy have just been published, although the exact amount of the increases will not be announced until next year. But using figures from the Office of Budget Responsibility, experts believe the two tax bands will add 18p to the cost of a litre of soft drink containing 5g of sugar per 100ml, and 24p to one that has more than 8g of sugar per 100ml. - Guardian

A top US investment bank resigned as a key adviser to Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct because of concerns that the retail company had manipulated its share price, according to claims made in a high court document. Bank of America Merrill Lynch had concerns about Sport Direct’s corporate governance and the “propriety” of share transactions in 2012 around its employee bonus scheme, according to allegations in legal filings by Jeff Blue, previously one of Ashley’s key allies. - Guardian

Tata Steel says it has made significant commitments to more than 4,000 workers at the Port Talbot steelworks in south Wales, which has spent the past eight months under threat of closure. Rather than close one of the two blast furnaces at the steelworks, which many believe Tata has been considering as part of a merger of its European operations with ThyssenKrupp, of Germany, it is believed that the Indian-owned industrial group plans to keep staff employed into the next decade. - The Times

The government will today unveil plans for a fully privatised railway line, with track and trains operated by the same company. A new route linking Oxford and Cambridge will not be developed by Network Rail, the owner of Britain’s rail infrastructure. Instead, a new entity will be responsible for track and infrastructure, as well as operating train services, under proposals drawn up by the transport secretary, Chris Grayling. - Guardian

Southern rail commuters face further disruption as an overtime ban by train drivers and a strike by conductors started on Tuesday morning. Members of the RMT are on strike for three days, while industrial action by Aslef members, including the refusal to work additional shifts, will run indefinitely. - Guardian

The city council of Portland in Oregon will vote on Wednesday whether to impose a tax on companies whose CEO’s pay exceeds the median salary of their workers by a ratio of more than 100-to-one. The measure, which was proposed by Portland city commissioner and former environmental lawyer Steve Novick, will take advantage of the fact that new Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules will require companies to disclose their executive pay ratios for the first time beginning in 2017. - Guardian