Sunday newspaper round-up: Brexit, Aviva, Rio Tinto, Hammerson, Facebook

More than a fifth of Britain’s largest financial services firms have confirmed they will move operations out of the UK as a result of Brexit. The latest figures from professional services giant EY’s Brexit tracker show 46 banks, insurers and asset managers intend to move either staff or operations to the Continent. - Mail on Sunday

Barclays has drawn up battle plans to fend off any attacks from activist investor Edward Bramson, of Sherborne Investors, who has built up a 5pc stake in the high street bank. Bosses are understood to have devised contingency plans for any hostilities with advisers at Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan. - Sunday Telegraph

Aviva chief executive Mark Wilson has been put on watch by top shareholders after the firm’s botched attempt to cancel shares. The insurer faced a revolt after it threatened to ignore protests and cancel £450m of high-yielding preference shares, which prompted fury from investors including thousands of pensioners who rely on the 8.5% annual income delivered by the shares. - Mail on Sunday

French shopping centre giant Klepierre has stepped up attempts to derail a tie-up of UK mall owners Hammerson and Intu, secretly laying the ground for a bid battle that threatens to turn hostile. It is understood that Klépierre has held talks with Hammerson’s top shareholders, urging them to force the firm to consider its takeover proposal. The Paris-based company offered 615p a share, worth £4.9bn. - Sunday Telegraph

Rio Tinto has been dragged into a Swiss bribery investigation involving its giant copper and gold mine in Mongolia’s Gobi desert. The investigation is a further setback for the FTSE 100 giant, whose bet on the $12bn Oyu Tolgoi project is coming under increasing scrutiny by shareholders. - Sunday Times

Investigators from Britain’s data watchdog have spent nearly seven hours searching the London offices of Cambridge Analytica, concluding the search at about 3am on Saturday. Eighteen enforcement officers entered the London headquarters of Cambridge Analytica on Friday night to search the premises after the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) was granted a warrant to examine its records amid allegations it may have illegally acquired the information of millions of Facebook users and used it to profile and target voters during political campaigns. - Observer

Oil services giant Wood Group, whose customers include BP and Shell, has completed an internal probe into its dealings with a controversial Monaco firm and handed its file to investigators. The inquiry, launched in May last year, found payments were made through an old joint venture company to Monaco-based Unaoil, which has been under criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office since 2016 over suspected bribery, corruption and money laundering. - Mail on Sunday

Proof of the UK’s economic recovery can be seen in the surge in workers moving from one job to another, Bank of England officials claim. Almost 900,000 people moved from one job to another in the final three months of 2017, the highest number since 2004. - Sunday Telegraph

Car sales in Britain are predicted to be the worst in Europe this year as a consumer squeeze weighs on spending decisions. The number of new cars being sold in the UK is expected to drop by 5.5 per cent, in sharp contrast with booming sales in every other country in Western Europe. - Mail on Sunday

Theresa May has been accused of betraying diesel drivers by abandoning plans for a nationwide scrappage scheme for "dirty" cars. Campaigners have accused the Government of punishing motorists who bought the cars in good faith, having been told they were tackling CO2 emissions by the last Labour government. - Sunday Telegraph

All gambling companies will be forced to introduce age checks on their websites in a bid to stop children from using them. The Gambling Commission will next week unveil plans to close a loophole that allows children to play games for free on gambling websites without age checks. - Sunday Telegraph

The first non-stop scheduled flight from Australia to the UK landed early in London after a 17 hour, six minute journey across 9,240 miles (14,875km) from Perth. Qantas flight QF9, a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with more than 230 passengers and crew on board, touched down at 5.03am at Heathrow on a chilly Sunday morning in what has been described as a “game-changer” by some in the aviation industry. - Observer

Shares in blood biopsy supplier Angle are poised to rise tomorrow on the back of results from a key study into ovarian cancer. Angle, based in Guildford, Surrey, and listed on AIM, has been working on a test that can detect which women have cancer and which have a benign pelvic tumour. - Sunday Times

An activist investor from Yorkshire is trying to oust the chief executive and chairman of an AIM-listed company in a row over rare mineral concessions in Mozambique. Richard Jennings, a former stockbroker from Wetherby, has called for an extraordinary general meeting of Pathfinder Minerals to push out Nick Trew and the Conservative MP Sir Henry Bellingham. - Sunday Times

The computer games developer behind hit titles such as Worms is planning a £200m stock market listing. Team 17, headquartered in Nottingham and Wakefield, West Yorkshire, has appointed stockbrokers from Berenberg and GCA Altium to work on the float. - Sunday Times

An online pharmacy backed by former banker Andy Hornby has raised £40million to fund its rapid growth. Hornby, who led HBOS to the brink of collapse during the financial crisis, is chairman of Pharmacy2U, which delivers repeat NHS prescriptions to patients’ homes. - Mail on Sunday

The accounting giant PwC is accused of conspiring to cheat a firm of consultants out of at least £75m in a deal with the controversial mining tycoon Frank Timis, in a High Court battle over natural riches in Sierra Leone. Fraser Turner alleges that PwC ­administrators sold the Marampa Mine to Timis Mining on terms that meant its rights to royalties on iron ore were breached. - Sunday Telegraph

National Grid is eyeing an upgrade to the power cables that run to 50 of Britain’s motorway service stations, with a high voltage links to the core transmission network to allow for fast charging of cars, lorries and buses. That could cost £500m to £1bn, the company reckons, and is crucial in solving the issue of range anxiety — the fear that your battery will run out before you reach your destination. - Sunday Times

The UK nuclear regulator has raised concerns with EDF Energy over management failings that it warns could affect safety at the Hinkley Point C power station if left unaddressed, official documents reveal. Britain’s chief nuclear inspector identified several shortcomings in the way the French firm is managing the supply chain for the £20bn plant it is building in Somerset. - Observer

Turnaround specialist Melrose’s controversial £8billion takeover bid for engineer GKN is set to go to the wire when shareholders cast their votes by Thursday. Bosses of both firms are gearing up for last-ditch talks with shareholders to convince them to back their own plans to turn around the aerospace and car parts maker. - Mail on Sunday

House of Fraser has approached specialist lenders for tens of millions of pounds in emergency funding as harsh trading conditions leave it fighting for its life. The company, which has struggled since being acquired by the Chinese tycoon Yuan Yafei, is understood to have asked for up to £40m from turnaround firms such as Alteri Investors, which is backed by the US hedge fund Apollo Global Management. - Sunday Times

Russia’s Gazprom has made a series of cuts to its energy trading operations in London, fuelling speculation that the gas giant is planning to retreat from the West. The state-backed energy behemoth has merged its oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading desks, making a handful of LNG traders redundant in the process. - Sunday Telegraph

Technology giant HP is paying the legal fees of the US government’s star witness in its fraud case against the former finance director of British software company Autonomy, it has emerged. Sushovan Hussain is accused of manipulating the accounts at Autonomy, where he spent 10 years, in a way that helped convince HP to mount a £7bn takeover in 2011. The trial began last month in San Francisco. - Sunday Times

Theresa May is planning to plough billions of extra pounds a year into health spending as part of a “birthday present” to mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS. Senior government sources say the prime minister will overrule the Treasury and boost spending to tackle growing waiting times and neutralise Labour’s political trump card. - The Times

Michael Gove plans to ban single-use plastic stirrers and drinking straws under plans drawn up by the government to stop waste clogging the oceans. The environment secretary has asked other ministers to approve the plans so that he can announce them in the coming weeks. - The Times

New concerns have been raised about universal credit, the government’s flagship welfare reform, after a new analysis suggested that the vast majority of self-employed people with low earnings could lose thousands of pounds. More than three quarters (78%) of self-employed people – such as Deliveroo and Uber drivers – on a low income in London will be more than £4,000 a year worse off as a result of universal credit, according to a study by the Policy in Practice consultancy. - Observer