Sunday newspaper round-up: Brexit in 2019, bank regulation, ITV, William Hill

The Bank of England is weighing up plans to ease the regulatory burden on smaller lenders, including allowing them to change the way we calculate their capital. City sources who have attended meetings with governor Mark Carney have told the Sunday Times that the Bank could respond to challenger banks and building societies' cries for help and could ease capital requirements, which are more onerous than for larger rivals, within months.

The Bank of England's chief economist, Andy Haldane, wrote in an opinion piece for the Sunday Times that the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, of which he is a member, was under no illusions that it could fully insulate Britain from the long-term effects of June's Brexit decision. Pointing out that the so-called recovery in recent years has been limited to 'the few rather than the many', he said the MPC’s monetary stimulus was only a short-term balm for economic uncertainty, with the challenge of achieving a proper recovery requiring widespread policy action from the government.

Britain is to forge ahead with plans to develop ‘baby’ nuclear reactors just two weeks after the Prime Minister threw energy policy into chaos by revealing there will be a shock delay to making a decision over Hinkley Point, the Mail on Sunday reported. The government will shortly select preferred partners to construct Small Modular Reactors – which could help provide an alternative to Hinkley and would be built using British factories and participation and could boost UK firms including Rolls-Royce, the Mail on Sunday reported.

The fate of the new Hinkley Point nuclear plant could hinge on a little-known get-out clause that allows Theresa May to pull vital financial support if a similar plant in France is not running by 2020. A sister plant at Flamanville in northern France using the same reactor design intended for Hinkley, was last year found to have “anomalies” in its steel reactor vessel, with the watchdog not expected to report back with suggested remedies until next year, the Sunday Times reported.

Farmers have been given ‘much-needed certainty’ in the short term after the Treasury’s announcement this weekend that it will cover the cost of EU grants once Britain leaves the European Union, the National Farmers Union has said. The Mail on Sunday noted that UK farmers received £2.4bn last year under the Common Agricultural Policy, but Chancellor Philip Hammond confirmed late on Friday that the Treasury would match EU grants to UK organisations, including farmers, scientists and small firms once the UK had quit the EU, at a cost of £4.5bn.

More than a million small businesses will be spared the burden of posting tax returns online every three months, the Sunday Times revealed, ahead of a government announcement on Monday. The Treasury is pressing ahead with plans to shift companies’ tax filings on to the internet — an initiative that had been opposed by small businesses, which were complaining about the expense of having to invest in digital accounting software.

London could bear the brunt of a Brexit vote downturn, as economic indicators in the weeks since the referendum have pointed to job cuts, falling house prices and a dip in business activity in the capital, the Observer said. London’s economy was relatively unaffected by the last downturn compared with other UK regions, but the early signs from the latest bout of turmoil suggest it may not get off so lightly, according to economists. That could have consequences for the government’s tax receipts and for overall growth, given the city’s contribution to the UK economy.

Company news

Anglo American is under pressure from its main shareholder to sell off its South African operations in a move that could herald the break-up of the mining giant, the Sunday Times said. South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which owns a 13% stake in the FTSE 100 group is demanding a bigger shake-up than that begun by chief executive Mark Cutifani, who is likely to be unwilling to carry out PIC's plan as it would leave it focused on just it copper mines and diamond giant De Beers.

US buyout giant KKR is among a handful of suitors eyeing a bid for Entertainment One, the owner of the hit cartoon Peppa Pig, which last week rebuffed a £1bn approach from ITV. KKR, whose investments include Trainline and Toys R Us, is understood to have held talks with the FTSE 250 company's Canadian major shareholder about taking the company private, while other potential suitors include Germany's ProSieben and the French media group Vivendi.

ITV could be willing to pay up to 280p a share or almost £1.2bn for Entertainment One, according to the Mail on Sunday's City sources. However, they said it was not clear when ITV would submit an improved offer after the 236p-a-share approach was rebuffed.

Casino owner Rank Group and online gaming specialist 888 Holdings are planning to up their offer for William Hill from 364p a share to 385p, putting an extra £183m on the table. William Hill chairman Gareth Davis told the Mail on Sunday this weekend that he was expecting a fresh bid, but would want far more than £3.2bn.

Software maker Misys is set for a blockbuster return to the stock market, in the biggest London float this year according to the Sunday Times. The banking software developer is hatching a plan to roar into the FTSE 100 with a £5.5bn initial public offer in the autumn that will see US private equity firm Vista Equity Partners return the company from whence it came four years after its £1.3bn buyout.

Fears over the burgeoning pension deficit at BAE Systems have prompted leading fund manager Neil Woodford to offload a £160m stake in the FTSE 100 defence contractor, the Sunday Times reprted. The decision by one of his funds comes hard on the heels of Woodford’s sale of a £300m holding in BT.

Morrison got almost all the things it asked for in the recently concluded bargaining with Ocado, with analysts saying the cashflows to the online specialist would be “negligible” — worth just 2p a share. Analyst James Tracey at Redburn said Ocado had, in effect, agreed to cover Morrisons’ costs and charge them back as a fee over several years, presenting a “distorted picture of Ocado profitability”.

Sky is secretly preparing a major expansion of its European empire by launching its online streaming service Now TV in Spain as the first stage of a plan to challenge Netflix and Amazon across the continent. For more than a year, a team at the pay-TV giant have been laying the groundwork for its first move into territories where it has no satellite operation, the Sunday Telegraph revealed.

Premier Oil is on the brink of agreeing a full-scale £2.6bn restructuring deal which is expected to secure its survival, reported the Sunday Telegraph. The UK’s largest independent oil company has been locked in talks with its lenders for months over fears that the crushing oil market downturn could push the company into default on the £2.6bn of its debt that was taken on to finance the development of two significant North Sea oil projects.

Large shareholders in Sports Direct are considering voting against the reappointment of the company’s chairman and other directors at next month’s annual general meeting in a bid to force change at the top of the embattled chain, the Observer said. Keith Hellawell, who has been chairman since 2009, will be the main target at the AGM, having faced almost 24% of independent shareholders’ votes against him last year.

Mike Ashley is embroiled in a new legal row with Rangers FC, which has accused his Sports Direct empire of taking improper dividends from the Scottish football club’s merchandise business. Dave King, the Glasgow football club’s chairman, claims the FTSE 100 company took almost £1m of dividends from Rangers Retail Limited that it was “legally not entitled to receive”, according to papers filed at the High Court, with directors of the Glasgow-based club refusing to sign off Rangers Retail’s accounts, which are now close to seven months overdue.

Sports Direct and Primark are understood to still be circling the rump of BHS’s last remaining open stores, despite the shutters coming down on the 88-year-old retailer’s Oxford Street store. The Sunday Telegraph said it understood that administrators Duff & Phelps had wanted to keep the flagship store open while the rest of BHS was being wound up. So far 105 BHS stores have been closed by administrators while 57 remain open and are running heavily discounted sales of stock and fixtures including mannequins.

Speedy Hire's largest shareholder is preparing to launch a fresh broadside against the troubled tool rental firm’s chairman after his refusal to meet its demands to stand down, according to the Sunday Telegraph. On Monday, Toscafund, which owns 19.5% of the company, will publish a new letter accusing Jan Astrand of failing to address the concerns it outlined to shareholders in a circular last week.

A biotech company developing a cancer drug discovered by Cuba's highly regarded biotech sector is set to float in London by the end of the year. Bioven, which is based in Malaysia and run by a former Glaxo Smith Kline senior executive, is hoping to raised around £30m by Christmas to help develop treatments for late-stage lung cancer, the Sunday Times revealed.

The struggling newspaper publisher Johnston Press is planning to buy back large tranches of its heavy debt pile at a steep discount as part of a scheme to stave off potential financial trouble, the Sunday Telegraph reported. The 190-year-old company, which publishes the i national newspaper and dozens of local titles, will seek to take advantage of fears it will struggle to repay £220m in bonds due in 2019, according to sources.

Lloyds Banking chief Antonio Horta-Osorio will almost certainly not be losing his job any time soon over revelations of his affair with former adviser to Tony Blair, Wendy Piatt, sources told the Sunday Times. But his prospects for a more lucrative role at a bigger public company, which had possibly included the top job at HSBC, have destinctly dimmed.

The owner of Evans Cycles has injected more money into the cycling retailer as part of a refinancing deal after a slump in profits, the Sunday Times reported. Venture capitalist ECI Partners bought the chain in a £100m deal 15 months ago. New figures show that the retailer’s pre-tax surplus slumped almost 70% to £1.37m in the year to October.

Deliveroo has been told by the government that it must pay its workers the minimum wage unless a court rules that they are self-employed. The food delivery company, which is embroiled in a pay row with its couriers, has had its proposed wage deal described by the Labour party as “Victorian”, the Observer reported, with its plans prompting hundreds of self-employed riders to protest over attempts to pay them per delivery rather than by the hour, a move they say will significantly reduce their earnings.