Tuesday newspaper round-up: Brexit, Japan, retailers, buses
Theresa May will insist she can find a way to deliver a Brexit deal that can win the backing of MPs when she visits Belfast in an attempt to reassure businesses and politicians in Northern Ireland she can break the deadlock in Westminster. The prime minister is due to chair a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning before departing for a two-day visit to Northern Ireland to underscore her commitment to avoiding a hard border. - Guardian
Europe’s top official offered Britain a legal guarantee that it would not be trapped by the Irish backstop last night but was immediately rebuffed by Brexiteer MPs. Martin Selmayr, the European Union’s most senior civil servant, spent 90 minutes with members of the Brexit select committee, who emerged saying that he was prepared to make significant concessions on Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement. - The Times
...Selmayr told British MPs at a Brussels meeting that the UK must pay the £39 billion Brexit bill even if there is a no-deal exit. Mr Selmayr, who is the most senior EU civil servant, warned on Monday that the future relationship between the UK and EU could be jeopardised by a refusal to pay the financial settlement after no deal. - Telegraph
There continue to be record levels of construction activity in Britain’s biggest regional cities, despite the uncertainty caused by Brexit. There was a sustained or increased level of development last year in offices, homes, hotels and student housing in Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, according to Deloitte. - The Times
The business secretary has been forced to admit the existence of a previously secret package of state aid to Nissan that could have been worth up to £80m had the carmaker gone ahead with plans to manufacture a new model X-Trail in Sunderland after Brexit. - Guardian
Experts have warned that a new EU-Japan trade deal could pose a post-Brexit threat to British industry in the wake of Nissan’s decision to backtrack on expanding its Sunderland plant. The world’s biggest free trade deal came into force on 1 February and there are fears that Japan will stop using the UK as a manufacturing base, especially with a 0% tariff on car imports built into the EU-Japan agreement. - Guardian
Transport giant FirstGroup is selling one of its biggest regional bus divisions in a bid to stem mounting losses. The Manchester operations, once worth about £100m in annual turnover, are to be sold in a cut-price deal, The Telegraph understands.
Retailers turned to discounts to achieve the biggest rise in sales since last June, but were warned that their recovery may not last. Total retail sales increased by 2.2 per cent last month, a faster pace than the 1.4 per cent rise a year earlier, according to figures from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG, the accountancy firm. The growth also outstripped the three-month and one-year averages of 0.8 per cent and 1.2 per cent, respectively. - The Times
The government could in future start taking equity stakes in Britain's technology startups, the chairman of Innovate UK, Ian Campbell, has said, in a move which could give it more say in where businesses base their operations. "We are always looking to see what the impact of our funding is," he said. - Telegraph
A New York-based investment firm with ties to Warren Buffett has taken a £63 million stake in Metro Bank, it emerged yesterday. Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb, which manages the Sequoia Fund, has amassed a 5.2 per cent stake in the troubled challenger bank, a regulatory filing showed yesterday. - The Times
Slack, the office messaging app that has been described as an email killer, has become the latest in a stampede of private tech companies filing to go public. The San Francisco company announced last night that it had filed documents with America’s Securities and Exchange Commission in preparation for a “public listing” of its shares. - Telegraph