Wednesday newspaper round-up: Sofa.com, house prices, Apple, tech giants

Mike Ashley could be about to make the leap from sportswear to sofa retailing with yet another takeover deal, this time of the online furniture specialist Sofa.com. The Sports Direct founder has been on a buying spree over the past year, snapping up struggling retail chains including House of Fraser and the bike specialist Evans Cycles amid a high street crisis. He is also currently in the running to acquire the collapsed entertainment chain HMV. – Guardian

House prices have grown fastest since the UK voted to leave the EU in cities in the Midlands, the north of England, Wales and Scotland, according to the property website Zoopla. Birmingham (up 16%), Manchester and Leicester (both up 15%) have seen the fastest growth since the June 2016 referendum, followed by Edinburgh and Nottingham (14%), Leeds and Cardiff (12%), and Liverpool and Sheffield (11%). – Guardian

Lord Browne of Madingley and other members of Huawei’s UK board are under pressure to review their ties to the Chinese telecoms giant after it was hit with a slew of criminal charges by the US government. Huawei came under fire Monday evening after the US Department of Justice charged the company on accounts of “attempted thefts of trade secrets”, seven counts of wire fraud and obstruction of justice. – Telegraph

Apple has revealed its first sales drop in more than two years and warned of further falls in the coming months as it confirmed that its iPhone business had gone into decline. The company revealed that revenues in the final three months of 2018, its traditionally lucrative Christmas period, had fallen by 5pc to $84.3bn (£64.5bn). – Telegraph

The government had “day-to-day” involvement and “strategic” control over the treatment of companies in the hands of Royal Bank of Scotland’s scandal-hit restructuring division, according to allegations in a legal claim against the bank. Court papers reveal that Oliver Morley, a wealthy property developer who is suing RBS, is also considering taking legal action against the Treasury over its alleged role in influencing the aggressive tactics employed against businesses by the bank’s Global Restructuring Group (GRG). – The Times

Plans have been launched to tear up the global tax rulebook in an effort to end years of avoidance by technology giants and other multinationals. In what promises to be the most fundamental reform of global tax in generations, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development yesterday said that its members had agreed to “address the tax challenges of the digitalisation of the economy”. – The Times