Sunday newspaper round-up: Opec, HSBC, Afren bid battle

HSBC is planning to break with its corporate traditions and appoint an outsider as its next chairman, according to the Sunday Times. The banking giant, which has received considerable criticism over the recent Swiss tax evasion scandal, has always promoted a loyal executive to head the boardroom but will change this policy due to shareholder pressure. Institutional investors in HSBC, the UK's largest company by market capitalisation, have begun to agitate for change in the wake of the Swiss scandal. Two of the 10 largest investors, speaking to the newspaper on condition they were not named, said the bank's promotion policy had become “incestuous” and, while it brought continuity, it was also "a bit cosy”.

George Davis, the fashion guru behind Next, George at Asda and Marks & Spencer's Per Una range, is poised to launch a new chain of shops in the UK under his FG4 label, the Mail on Sunday reported. First stores are expected to open in 2015, with 100 possible locations having already been identified, mainly in market towns rather than big cities and shopping centres, after the 'FG4 by George Davies' brand has been tested out in the Middle East for the past four years.

The booming British building industry's fastest growth for five years, is the splash story the Mail on Sunday, with research prepared by credit-monitoring group Creditsafe. More than 15,000 new building companies were set up during 2014 and data shows the construction sector grew by 7.4% last year, its fastest rate since 2010. The research points to a “clear, though not universal, recovery in the building sector” over the past year, as demand for new homes climbed and larger construction projects were dug out of deep freeze.

Oil company Afren could also be facing a bid battle, as billionaire Chinese tycoon Guo Guangchang, whose Fosun conglomerate recently bought Club Med, is backing a cash bid to prise the former FTSE 250 company away from its fund management owners, the Sunday Times revealed. Guo and Afren's co-founder Bert Cooper have put together a $500m (£325m) bid but is thought likely to be pipped by a rival bid from the oil company’s bondholders, US-based Pimco and London fund manager Ashmore, who have tabled a $300m deal.

Another ownership battle may be finally coming to an end, as the owners of the Claridge’s, Berkeley and Connaught hotels in London have received a bumper £1.6bn bid from Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund, the Sunday Times said. The state fund has tabled a £1.6bn knockout bid for Maybourne Hotel Group to Coroin, its holding company. The hotels group has been subject of a bidding war between Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, owners of the Ritz and Telegraph newspapers, and Paddy McKillen, the Irish property investor.

UK cinema chain is Vue working on its own bid for one of Scandinavia's largest multiplex chains, said the Sunday Times. Vue, which owns just shy of 200 cinemas, will face a battle with other European trader buyers and private equity firms if it wants to acquire Nordic Cinema Group, which analysts calculate is worth between £350m and £400m.

A Russian bid to snap up a handful of North Sea oil fields has been blocked by the government at the eleventh hour, according to the Sunday Times. The energy secretary ruled against a £3.7bn deal agreed by Letter One Energy, a fund controlled by Russian oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and German Khan, to buy oil assets of Germany's RWE. The deal had received regulatory approval from several other national governments and Britain’s consent was the last it needed.

The founder of Dunelm homeware stores has taken a stake in Morrisons, saying the grocer has “turnaround potential”. Bill Adderley said he had bought about 2m shares in Britain’s fourth-biggest grocer, which is trying to recover from several years of falling sales. “I bought them because I thought it couldn’t get any worse,” Adderley told the Sunday Times. “My belief is that shopkeepers should run shops, and they should concentrate on getting their fruit and veg right — not going out and buying other businesses that aren’t relevant.”