Tuesday newspaper round-up: HSBC, Osborne, Google, stamp duty

HSBC is leaning towards keeping its headquarters in London after 10 months of agonising debate reflecting a reversal of the previous stance of chief executive Stuart Gulliver. In private meetings over the past few weeks, Mr Gulliver has played down the case for leaving the UK, according to people present, arguing that the environment in the UK is far more stable than he had feared a year ago. – Financial Times

An increasing squeeze on the UK’s public finances will require George Osborne to break several records if he is to balance Britain’s books by the end of the decade, according to the country’s leading economic think-tank. The Green Budget from the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlights the fragility of Mr Osborne’s goal of running a surplus by 2019–2020, stressing the increasingly difficult targets the chancellor will have to meet. – Financial Times

Britain is extremely unlikely to face an economic recession over the next two years and is on safer ground than any other major country in the developed world, according to a new crisis-study by Goldman Sachs. The US investment bank said the global stock market rout and the credit tremors this year are sending off false signals, insisting that underlying indicators of economic health show little sign of a sudden rupture in Europe, the US or across the OECD bloc of rich states. – Telegraph

Google's chief executive has been handed shares worth $199m (£138m), making him the highest paid boss in the US. Sundar Pichai, who became head of the search giant in October after a company-wide reorganisation, was awarded 273,328 shares, a filing showed. The shares will vest every three months until 2019. - Telegraph

A new runway will be built at Heathrow or Gatwick by 2030 and the work being done now is vital to make sure the decision is legally watertight, the transport secretary has told sceptical MPs. Questioned by the Commons transport select committee on Monday, Patrick McLoughlin insisted that the government had made progress on the issue of airport capacity and still hoped to give a final decision by July. – Guardian

Apple has come under pressure to scrap its controversial policy of permanentlydisabling repaired iPhone 6s when software is upgraded, following a global consumer backlash and claims the company could be acting illegally. At least one firm of US lawyers said it hopes to bring a class action against the technology giant on behalf of victims whose £500 phones have been rendered worthless by an Apple software upgrade. - Guardian

Revenues generated from stamp duty in London fell by £105 million in the first nine months of last year, as George Osborne’s reform of the tax led to a slowdown in transactions for the most expensive homes in the capital. Nationwide, the stamp duty tax collected between January and October 2015 was down by 12.1 per cent compared with the same period a year previously, leading to a £620 million fall for England and Wales. – The Times

Britain’s leading equity crowdfunder has denied claims that it misled ordinary investors by “drip-feeding” money from other sources on to the platform to create the artificial impression that there was “demand for investment”. Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of The Sun-turned-entrepreneur, alleged that a business he was involved in had been advised by Crowdcube to use what he called a “neat trick” to raise investment by using funds that were not properly disclosed to the site’s investors. – The Times