Sunday newspaper round-up: Brexit, GDP, pensions, submarines, Sky

Downing Street is lobbying Conservative Eurosceptics to join the cabinet in supporting a softer Brexit that would keep Britain in parts of the single market. Theresa May claimed last night to have united her warring ministers after an all-day meeting at her Chequers country retreat. She urged her divided party to unite and “move at pace” towards a deal with Brussels and promised senior allies she will sack Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, if he seeks to undermine the peace deal. - The Times

Official economic growth figures this week are set to bolster the case for an interest rate hike by the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) next month. The Office for National Statistics is expected to say the economy grew by as much as 0.3 per cent in the three months to the end of May. - Mail on Sunday

Britain will this week become one of the first major developed economies in the world to publish economic growth figures on a monthly basis. Starting from Tuesday, the Office for National Statistics will produce estimates for the monthly growth in gross domestic product (GDP) alongside a range of other statistical indicators for the health of the British economy. - Observer

Arron Banks’ Leave.EU campaign team met with Russian embassy officials as many as 11 times in the run-up to the EU referendum and in the two months beyond, documents seen by the Observer suggest – seven more times than Banks has admitted. The same documents suggest the Russian embassy extended a further four invitations to Brexit’s biggest funder, but it is not known if they were accepted.- Observer

The world economy is on the brink of “part two of the financial crisis” due to global underfunding of pensions, German private bank Berenberg has warned. A reluctance by governments, businesses and consumers to set aside enough cash for pension pots will ultimately have a bigger negative impact on growth and company earnings than the 2008 crash, analysts at the bank said in a note. - Sunday Telegraph

Construction of Britain’s Astute nuclear submarines is in danger of veering off course again, a damning report has revealed. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) review also warns that more taxpayer money is likely to be needed for an upgrade to Rolls-Royce’s nuclear reactor core factory in Derby, which makes the equipment that powers the submarines. - Sunday Times

Rupert Murdoch is set to finally be given clearance by the government to take over Sky, freeing the media mogul to lodge a new knockout bid to try to see off rival Comcast. The culture secretary, Matt Hancock, will this week give his verdict, allowing Murdoch to buy the 61% of Sky he does not already own after a consultation on plans to make him sell Sky News to reduce his control of UK news media. - Observer

TalkTalk’s billionaire chairman Sir Charles Dunstone is facing an attempt by investors to oust him amid enduring anger over a controversial £200m share sale that the broadband operator deployed in an effort to ease its heavy burden of debt. Two of the City’s most influential shareholder advisers are targeting Sir Charles at TalkTalk’s AGM to be held later this month. - Sunday Telegraph

Iain Ferguson, the chairman of Stobart Group, has clung on to power after the company’s former chief executive, Andrew Tinkler, launched a campaign to unseat him. However his re-appointment risked being overshadowed as a slim majority of shareholders backed Mr Tinkler to become a director of the company, only to see him unanimously sacked by his fellow directors hours later on Saturday afternoon. Both of the businessmen won the votes by very narrow margins. - SundayTelegraph

The future of Premier Foods boss Gavin Darby is looking increasingly uncertain this weekend after two of the company’s biggest shareholders backed an aggressive campaign to oust him. Wall Street hedge fund Paulson, which owns a 6.2pc stake, said he had failed to deliver on a promise to create shareholder value after knocking back a takeover bid from US spice maker McCormick in 2016 and selling a large stake to Japan’s Nissin instead. - Sunday Telegraph

Sir Martin Sorrell is expected to give senior managers a 25% stake in his new acquisition vehicle if he seals his comeback with the purchase of a Dutch digital production company this week. The advertising tycoon, who left WPP under a cloud in April, is close to buying MediaMonks, based in Hilversum, near Amsterdam. - Sunday Times

Hedge funds are cashing in on the war on plastics by shorting shares in packaging giant RPC Group. Bets worth more than £240million have been placed against the FTSE 250 company, whose shares have come under pressure recently because of the clampdown on plastic packaging waste. - Mail on Sunday

Hospitality bosses have fired a broadside at the government for taking “zero action” on business rates to help pubs, bars and restaurants — and revealed that more than 6,000 jobs have already been lost this year. Further job cuts could be on the way if the “unjust” taxation system is not reformed, said Steve Richards, the chief executive of Casual Dining Group, which owns Café Rouge. - Sunday Times

Retailers have been handed a welcome boost by the baking hot weather, which has sent demand for fashion clothing soaring. Sales at online giant Asos have surged 25 per cent in the past three months as shoppers have rushed to spruce up their wardrobes, according to analysts. - Mail on Sunday

Former Tory party treasurer Michael Spencer is braced for a fiery end to his City reign as he faces a shareholder revolt over an £18.6million bonus from his trading firm. NEX Group, formed by Spencer after his Icap broking firm bought Tullett Prebon’s electronic trading business in 2016, is being bought by America’s CME Group for £3.9billion. - Mail on Sunday

The Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority have slammed banks and investment providers for failing customers as a result of shoddy technology and mismanagement of cyber threats. In an unprecedented move, senior officials from the UK’s two biggest financial regulators warned that banks, investment providers and any other financial firms dealing with consumers must step up their game on ‘preventative measures’ to avoid another meltdown such as the one suffered by TSB customers in April this year. - Mail on Sunday

The Chinese government is in early-stage talks to buy a big minority stake in Britain’s fleet of nuclear power stations. China General Nuclear (CGN), the country’s state-run nuclear giant, is understood to have made an approach about acquiring a share of up to 49% in the eight power stations, which generate a fifth of the nation’s electricity. - Sunday Times

Rescue backers are in talks to plough in an extra £50million to save Carillion's crisis-hit hospital project in Liverpool. Insurance group Legal & General and the European Investment Bank have already committed around £180million to build the £429million Royal Liverpool Hospital. New funds from the two lenders could ensure the delayed facility is finally completed next year, more than two years behind schedule. - Mail on Sunday

The government’s role in a disputed planning application to demolish a historical Royal Mail sorting office next to Paddington station in London and replace it with a 19-storey glass tower is to be scrutinised by judges. The case, to be heard at the Court of Appeal on 19 July, will examine why official advice questioning the merits of the project, shared with Sajid Javid when he was the local government secretary, was not disclosed, in breach of the government’s published policy. - Observer

Struggling TV channel London Live will be forced to ask owner Evgeny Lebedev for more cash after posting another year of losses. The broadcaster’s owner ESTV revealed a pre-tax loss of £3.5m for the year to September 2017 and said it would need extra funding to stay afloat “for the foreseeable future” because its finances remain in the red. - Sunday Telegraph

Shareholder protest votes against company auditors have taken off since the financial crisis. Data from corporate governance agency Minerva Analytics showed that there had been 80 occasions in the past five years when a protest vote of more than 20 per cent was registered for UK companies. That happened only nine times in the five years leading up to 2008. - Mail on Sunday

One in five companies that raised money through online crowdfunding has ended up on the scrap-heap. Figures compiled by the start-up database Beauhurst found that of 685 UK deals on 28 crowdfunding websites such as Seedrs and Crowdcube between 2013 and 2015, some 148 had since collapsed, equivalent to 21pc. However, the failure rate was much lower than the average for start-ups. - Sunday Telegraph

The Co-operative Group has made a failed £15m takeover approach for Costcutter that would have created a grocer with more than 4,000 shops. The offer was rejected several weeks ago and would have formalised the relationship between the two brands. They struck a wholesale agreement in November after the collapse of supplier Palmer & Harvey. - Sunday Times

The Scottish fantasy sports site FanDuel was once valued at more than $1bn and feted as one of Britain’s hottest tech start-ups, but its founders and early investors are now left with nothing. Hundreds of shareholders have had their investments wiped out in a “stitch-up” after two American private equity giants forced through a sale of the business to Paddy Power Betfair. - Sunday Times

Mastercard is in talks with British banks to introduce a biometric payment card, as a deadline to implement EU regulations to tackle banking fraud approaches. Currently the US company is testing the biometric card, which has an inbuilt fingerprint sensor, in South Africa, but hopes it can be brought to Britain in the following months. - Sunday Telegraph

Would you pay $15 to take a nap? A growing number of businesses certainly hope so. Nap York, a startup in New York City, is a wellness club that appreciates the business benefits of sleep. With live plants, soundproof curtains, noise-cancelling headphones and a dark, four-story environment, the company provides its “napping pods” for $15 a half-hour to anyone who wants to take a snooze any time during the day at its two locations near Grand Central and Penn stations. - Observer

The vaping start-up behind the “iPhone of ecigarettes” is closing in on a giant financing round that will value it at $16bn (£12bn). Juul, founded by two Stanford University product-design graduates, is known for its sleek, rectangular device. The company has grabbed more than half the American market thanks to this unique design and its ability to deliver a big payload of nicotine. - Sunday Times

Labour members will be asked to help draft the party’s drugs policies in a move that has been welcomed by groups pushing for reform. The campaign for drugs policy reform will be launched by two whips, Jeff Smith and Thangam Debbonaire, “to provide a forum for discussion for Labour members to debate and shape Labour’s drug policy of the future”. - Observer