Tuesday newspaper round-up: Woodford, Amazon, AstraZeneca, Brexit

MPs have asked the City regulator to publish details of its contact with Neil Woodford and raised concerns that the Financial Conduct Authority may have been asleep at the wheel as the fund manager tumbled into crisis. The Treasury select committee wants the Financial Conduct Authority to “set out the detail of its supervisory contact” with the Woodford Equity Income Fund. It also wants to know whether the watchdog plans to launch a formal investigation of the events that led to investors being blocked from cashing out their investments and to explain “how long such a suspension should be”. – Guardian

HM Revenue & Customs spent £11m to use Amazon’s web-hosting service last year, more than six times the £1.7m it received in corporation tax from Amazon’s main UK business, according to a new report. The UK tax authority was the second-biggest spender on Amazon services among central government departments, falling just behind the Home Office which spent nearly £16m last year, according to a report published by the GMB trade union. – Guardian

AstraZeneca will continue to look for ‘transformational’ drugs to add to its oncology portfolio, as it sharpens its focus under new cancer R&D chief José Baselga. Earlier this year the drug maker paid $1.36bn (£1.07bn) to work with Japanese pharmaceutical company Daiichi Sankyo on a promising breast cancer treatment, with a further $5.54bn to be paid to Daiichi if the drug achieves certain milestones. – Telegraph

The proposed merger of Raytheon and United Technologies Corporation is set to create a new powerhouse in the aerospace and defence sector. Combining the US companies will create the world’s third-largest player in that sector, generating annual revenues of $69bn, almost equally split between defence and commercial sales, according to deal documents. Only Boeing, with annual sales of $101bn, and Airbus, at $74bn, would be bigger. -Telegraph

Business leaders from some of Britain’s most important trading partners expect to be more eager to invest in the UK after Brexit, according to a survey. A poll of 1,300 chief executives in 11 of the world’s largest economies found bosses from the US, China and Japan — the UK’s top investor and the world’s second and third biggest economies — expect to be more likely to invest in Britain after it leaves the European Union. – The Times

The multimillionaire hedge fund manager behind the Silchester group paid himself at least £27 million this year, despite a dip in profits at the firm he co-founded. Stephen Butt and his family took home about 52 per cent of a £52.5 million dividend paid by the parent company Silchester Partners. – The Times