Thursday newspaper round-up: LSE, Brexit developments, Barclays, iPhones

BREXIT CORNER

EU leaders are preparing to offer a two-year Brexit transition deal as early as January after negotiators said that they were close to a breakthrough over the Northern Ireland border. British officials tabled proposals this week to avoid a “hard border” in Ireland that could unblock the last remaining major obstacle to a deal. - The Times

UK and EU negotiators are increasingly optimistic that sufficient agreement on the future of the Irish border can be reached in the coming days to progress Brexit talks to the next stage. Sources indicate the ground has now been laid for political agreement on the question of the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland after Brexit, which would allow both sides to start discussing the UK’s future trading relationship with the bloc. - Guardian

Theresa May has been put on notice by hardline Conservative Eurosceptics that they could be prepared to vote against her final Brexit deal if the UK continues to pay the £50bn divorce bill for years to come or does not get good trade terms. A group of Tory MPs are unhappy about the scale of the proposed sum and believe leaving on World Trade Organisation terms would be better, meaning the prime minister might have to rely on Labour support to get parliament’s approval for a final deal before March 2019. - Guardian

The European court of justice is to be asked if the UK can stop the Brexit process unilaterally in a legal challenge being launched in Scotland by pro-European politicians. A group of four politicians from Labour, the Scottish National party and Scottish Greens wants the European court to rule on whether article 50 can be revoked by the UK on its own if voters or the Commons decide the final Brexit deal is unacceptable. - Guardian

Britain can free its banking system from the burden of excessive EU red tape after Brexit – and can instead focus on the important rules which keep the financial system safe, Mark Carney, the Bank of England’s Governor, indicated yesterday. That could include the bonus cap which the Bank of England has long opposed, as well as rules which force small banks to face the same rules as global institutions. - Telegraph

NATIONWIDE BUILDS, BARCLAYS APPOINTS

Nationwide Building Society is to directly build about 200 “fair price” homes for sale and rent for the first time with a scheme in Swindon. But the mutual said it was only tiptoeing into property development and had no plans to become a volume housebuilder. - Guardian

Millions of iPhone users could be in line for compensation after the launch of a mass legal claim against Google for illegally harvesting personal data from Apple handsets. The claim group, led by Richard Lloyd, former executive director of the consumer watchdog Which?, aims to secure a settlement of £1 billion or more for the estimated 5.4 million people who are believed to have had information unlawfully collected by the technology giant. - The Times

Britain’s car manufacturing heartlands have been selected as the site for a new research centre into batteries which it is hoped will revolutionise the automotive sector and make the UK a world leader in the technology. Business Secretary Greg Clark confirmed on Wednesday that Coventry and Warwickshire would be the site of an £80m project to develop batteries for use in the automotive industry. - Telegraph

Union bosses have announced a series of strikes over the Christmas period. The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said that six one-day stoppages would be staged on the west coast main line over a pay dispute. - The Times

Barclays has recruited a clutch of top bosses from across technology, retail and financial services to join the board of its soon to be launched ring-fenced UK bank. The high street lender is thought to be ahead of the pack in setting up a stand-alone retail bank, under new rules designed to protect British consumers and small businesses from riskier investment banking operations. - Telegraph

Low-cost airline Wizz Air has secured all the take-off and landing slots at Luton airport which belonged to defunct rival Monarch. The Hungary-based carrier strengthened its position at Luton last month when it formally launched a base there, adding four aircraft to its sole plane at the airport and announcing 30 additional flights each week. - Telegraph

The “bad bank”, established by the Government to manage the assets of collapsed lenders Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley, will on Thursday lay out plans to offload £5.5bn of housing loans through an auction. UK Asset Resolution (UKAR) is expected to release details of the upcoming mortgage sales when it publishes results on Thursday morning. - Telegraph

Just Eat, the online takeaway company, was on Wednesday night officially promoted into the FTSE 100 list of Britain’s blue chip companies, with a valuation of £5.5bn – making it worth half a billion pounds more than the UK’s second biggest supermarket chain. The UK’s love affair with having pizzas, curries and kebabs delivered to their door has spawned a mobile food business with no products and no outlets that is more highly valued than Sainsbury’s, which sells 90,000 products through 1,400 stores – and also owns the Argos chain. - Guardian

Workers who left school or graduated in a recession can expect their pay and job prospects to be damaged for as much as a decade, as a poor start to their working lives has a long, lingering impact even as the economy recovers. New workers in a recession are around 10pc more likely to be unemployed. After 10 years they are still 1pc more likely to be out of work than those who left education in a year of economic growth, the Institute for Fiscal Studies found. - Telegraph

Uber lost $1.5bn (£1.1bn) in the third quarter of the year, reversing recent progress that had seen the $70bn tech firm stem the red ink in recent months. The latest financials, disclosed to investors as Uber attempts to secure a major funding round from the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, will raise doubts about its ability to turn its millions of customers and global presence into profits. - Telegraph