Sunday newspaper round-up: AstraZeneca, Monarch Airlines, HSBC, Opec deal

Monarch Airlines is eyeing up a number of struggling European rivals as its owners weigh ambitious growth plans for the low-cost carrier, the Sunday Telegraph said. It is understood the airline has shortlisted a handful of potential takeover candidates on the Continent, as part of a wide-ranging strategic review undertaken by Greybull Capital, the family office that saved it from collapse less than two years ago.

...and Easyjet is one of those rival that is planning a possible swoop as rescuers Greybull Capital continue talks to buy Tata Steel. With other suitors also reported to be lurking, the Sunday Times reported, Monarch has appointed Deutsche Bank to examine its options and handle prospective bidders.

HSBC chief executive Stuart Gulliver will stand down in two years, completing a boardroom shake-up at Britain’s biggest bank, according to the Sunday Times, after chairman Douglas Flint departs next year. The lender, which appointed the pair in 2011, has already begun compiling a list of internal candidates to fill the role, but will also consider external candidates, according to senior sources.

Bosses from some of the biggest property companies have warned of market jitters as the EU referendum looms, the Sunday Telegraph said. Industry chiefs at a British Property Federation event last week said investors and developers are delaying decisions until after June 23 because of political and economic uncertainty.

UBS has warned that Britain risks a “sudden stop” in capital inflows and a 30% crash in sterling if the country votes to leave the EU and negotiations turn ugly, the Sunday Telegraph reported. Invoking a traumatic scenario akin to an emerging market crisis, the bank said Britain has embarked on the referendum at an extremely delicate moment when the country has the worst current account deficit in the developed world and is dependent on foreign investors to plug the gap.

UK regulators are gearing up for the biggest shakeup of the water market in almost 30 years, with more than 1m businesses free to shop around for the best deals from next April, according to the Observer. The water regulator Ofwat said 1.2m businesses in England stand to benefit from the changes, which will allow them to switch water supplier.

The UK's big bookmakers will soon reveal the cost of rank outsiders Leicester City storming to a Premier League title.
Ladbrokes, the Sunday Times said, will explain at its trading update on Thursday that it stands to lose £3m if last season's relegation dalliers Leicester, who started the season at odds of 5,000-1, take the title next month, while William Hill are estimating it will take a £2m hit.

Companies that fail to stop staff facilitating tax evasion could be hit with unlimited fines under new rules to be unveiled on Sunday, noted the Sunday Times, as the Treasury accelerated plans to introduce the new corporate criminal offence. HM Revenue & Customs have published details of regulations aimed at holding to account corporations that lack safeguards against rogue employees, aiming to punish companies that have “inadequate supervisory mechanisms” for employees as well as the small number of businesses that encourage evasion.

Top oil-producing nations are expected to announce a freeze in production on Sunday, but doubts remain over whether a deal will be enough to send the price of crude higher, the Sunday Times said, with Iran and Brazil not joining the pact. With members of the Opec cartel meeting in Doha with a handful of non-Opec producers, notably Russia, to hammer out an agreement, oil prices rallied last week in the expectation the meeting would help curb the over-supply that has caused a dramatic two-year collapse in prices.

But petrol prices could soar to 115p a litre if a deal is struck in Doha, suggested the Mail on Sunday. While analysts are divided over whether a deal can be reached at the Doha meeting, the UK's Petrol Retailers Association said further rises in prices at the forecourt are inevitable even if there is no decisive agreement at the summit.

Royal Bank of Scotland has reduced its global lending to oil and gas companies and doubled its green energy loans in the UK to £1bn a year, according to new figures released to the Observer and Guardian. The move, largely due to the bank's withdrawal from North America and Asia as part of a retrenchment to the UK, may indicate a change of direction for a bank that was until recently one of the world’s biggest financiers of fossil fuels and has been repeatedly targeted by climate change campaigners.

Although some flotations have been postponed due to worries about the Brexit vote, £1.7bn cinema chain Vue and Arqiva, the £5bn operator of Britain’s television and radio transmissions, are among those plotting blockbuster initial public offers next year. More immediate IPOs could come from brick maker Forterra, said by the Sunday Times to be working on £450m a listing, and lung cancer testing play Oncimmune, which is planing to announce plans this week for its £66m float on AIM.

Worldpay, the payments company valued at nearly £5bn in the biggest float of last year, has attracted its first large short-seller since joining the stock market, the Sunday Telegraph reported. The US bank Citigroup set up the bet against Worldpay on behalf of an unnamed client, taking a position worth 0.54pc of the company, or about £29m.

Swedish furniture store Ikea's UK boss Gillian Drakeford believes there are not enough Ikea stores in Britain, and plans to change that. Having already led the group through a significant recovery in sales, the Mail on Sunday said, Drakeford is now planning a big UK expansion and a major shift in strategy including a possible move to Oxford Street.

UK stores let to Marks & Spencer are to be sold for £500m, 15 years after the retailer first sold the units for £348m to raise capital, the Sunday Telegraph reported. Landlord Topland Group has appointed agents at property advisory firm CBRE to find a buyer for the 76 stores, 13 of which are in prime London areas such as Camden, Chiswick, Clapham and Putney.

The long-term future of the Co-operative Bank has been thrown into doubt by a warning that it faces a £1bn hole in its finances, the Sunday Times reported. Analysts at research firm Autonomous have questioned whether the troubled mutual will be able to comply with onerous capital requirements set by the Bank of England.

The controversial £18bn Hinkley Point nuclear plant will go ahead, French economy minister Emmanuel Macron has insisted, amid mounting doubts over the viability of the project, the Sunday Telegraph said. Macron said he was “actively working” with developer EDF, the French state-owned group, and the UK government to draw up the “final points” of a deal for Hinkley and that it was "very important for France" that the project went ahead.

BHS’s finance adviser is set to leave just a month after he shepherded the loss-making department store through a controversial restructuring, said the Sunday Times. Michael Hitchcock, former boss of the Beales chain, is due to stand down on Thursday, when a deadline for objections to BHS’s company voluntary arrangement (CVA) closes.

Luke Johnson, the founder of Pizza Express, plans to use his recent purchase of Brighton Pier as a cornerstone for building a nationwide leisure group he likened to a mini-Merlin, after the Legoland and Madame Tussauds company. Although Johnson has been fielding calls from other pier owners offering to sell all or part of their attractions, Johnson told the Mail on Sunday he has his sights set on other ‘experience-led’ attractions as a means of tapping into the 'staycation' trend as UK resorts are improving, investing and becoming more commercial.

Turnover at the company behind the viewing platform at the top of London's Shard building have dropped for the third year running due to falling ticket sales. Revenue slipped from £20m to £18.2m in 2015, while profits have almost halved to £2.6m since the first year the attraction opened, the Mail on Sunday noted.

Food producer 2 Sisters, the billion pound maker of Fox’s Biscuits and Marks & Spencer ready meals, is facing industrial action after trade unions claimed that it is trying to claw back the benefit of the government’s newly-introduced National Living Wage from its staff. Food firm 2 Sisters, which is part of £3.5bn Boparan Holdings, has told staff it plans to cut Sunday and Bank Holiday pay, overtime and time off in lieu for working unsociable hours.