Tuesday newspaper round-up: Data leaks, UK confidence, Barclays, BT

Worries about the EU referendum in June, rising labour costs and China’s slowdown have knocked UK business confidence to a four-year low, according to a report that will fan fears the economy is losing momentum. A poll of 1,000 chartered accountants by their professional body, the ICAEW, echoed other recent surveys pointing to fragile consumer and business confidence as the referendum approaches. The poll also noted a slowdown in domestic sales and nervousness about hiring new staff. - Guardian

More evidence of the uncertainty caused by the EU referendum has emerged as figures suggest that optimism in the jobs market stalled last month and employers froze advertised salaries because of the threat of Brexit. The average salary offered on Adzuna, a jobs search website, was £33,815 in March, flat against the previous month, according to data released today. - The Times

Halliburton and Baker Hughes are preparing to call off their $28bn (£19.2bn) merger, which has met stiff antitrust resistance from regulators in the US and Europe, a person familiar with the situation said. The companies, the second- and third-largest oil-service firms, could announce as soon as Monday morning that they have terminated the combination, according to Bloomberg. - Telegraph

BT Group is in talks to open up its infrastructure to a rival in a landmark test of Ofcom’s plan to introduce more competition for its much criticised Openreach network monopoly. Openreach is in discussions with City Fibre, the alternative broadband network builder, about a large-scale fibre-optic roll-out over BT’s ducts and poles in Southend, according to industry sources. It is understood that BT is currently surveying its infrastructure in the Essex town to get the project under way. - Telegraph

Mario Draghi has hit back at German criticism of the European Central Bank’s interest rate policy, saying low borrowing costs were symptomatic of a glut in global savings for which Germany was partly to blame. The ECB president’s argument on Monday is a new line of defence against strong objections from German politicians, bankers and the media over the ECB’s decision to lower its benchmark main refinancing rate to zero. - Financial Times

If you are aged 50-plus and have children, then the UK’s strongest “Challenger Bank” is probably headquartered in your living room. If on the other hand you are under 40 and trying to buy your first home, your bank managers may well include your parents, or even grandparents, according to Legal & General’s research on the “Bank of Mum and Dad”, published on Tuesday, that catalogues the £5bn annually supplied by parents for house purchases. - Telegraph

A senior executive at Barclays has alleged money laundering and mis-selling failures at the bank’s French operations, casting a shadow over the British group’s plan to sell its business in France to a private equity group. A letter dated April 5 from Philippe Hébert, chief risk officer of Barclays France, to Tony Blanco, chief executive of Barclays France, alleged serious shortfalls in the bank’s standards of controls, compliance and conduct. - Financial Times

One of the hedge funds that helped to rescue the Co-op Bank has placed a bet on a further decline at the holiday company Thomas Cook. Silver Point Capital has built a trade worth more than £10m that would profit if the tour operator’s shares fall. - Telegraph

Eurotunnel made preparations yesterday for the departure of its longstanding chief executive with the appointment of a new deputy. François Gauthey, 53, has been promoted from chief operating officer in charge of corporate services to deputy chief executive and is in pole position to take over when Jacques Gounon retires. - The Times

The City is poised for a brace of listings that could add more than £2 billion to the value of companies traded on the stock market and boost investment banks hit by a worldwide fees drought. The Range, a discount furniture retailer, and NewDay, one of the country’s largest providers of store cards, have begun talks with investors about flotations that could value the companies at more than £1 billion each. - The Times

London’s historic stations could be sold off to plug a funding gap at the renationalised Network Rail. The possible sale of the property in and around stations such as Waterloo and Paddington is under investigation by Network Rail Property (NRP). - The Times

Britain’s most senior civil servant, Sir Jeremy Heywood, is reviewing HS2 as fears grow that the high-speed railway cannot be built within its £55bn budget in its current form. Heywood, the cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, has been quietly investigating HS2 in an effort to cut costly elements, with his report due to be handed to ministers by the summer. - Guardian

Italian banking shares have come under pressure after the planned listing of regional lender Popolare di Vicenza flopped and the latest government measures aimed at tackling the sector’s bad loans fell short of expectations. The stock market in Milan said it could not allow Popolare di Vicenza to list after investors bought just 7.7% of its €1.5 bn share issue. - Guardian

Avid cyclists can indulge their passion around the clock and from the comfort of their sofas with a new Sky TV channel. Through word of mouth alone, the UK version of the Bike Channel, of Italy, attracts more than 40,000 daily viewers and will launch officially at the Soho Hotel in London tomorrow, with Mario Cipollini, a cycling legend, in attendance. - The Times

A Portuguese cash-and-carry tycoon agitating to parachute two non-executive directors into Stock Spirits has been backed by a shareholder advisory group. ShareSoc, which represents retail investors, has become the first proxy adviser to weigh into a boardroom battle between Luís Amaral and the board of the Polish vodka maker. - The Times

An executive at Reckitt Benckiser was slapped during an emotional news conference as he apologised on Monday for deadly lung injuries linked to the use of humidifier sterilisers marketed by the firm. Ata Safdar, head of Reckitt Benckiser Korea and Japan, bowed several times in apology before an audience that included victims and their families, among them a 13-year-old boy who now uses an oxygen tank to breathe. - Guardian

The MP leading an analysis into the collapse of BHS has lashed out at its former owner Sir Philip Green over the sale of the business to people who “crash[ed] it into a cliff”. The retail billionaire, his wife Tina and Anthony Grabiner, chairman of Green’s retail empire Arcadia for more than a decade, are being asked to appear before two parliamentary committees to give evidence about the high street chain’s demise. - Guardian

Amid diminishing job security, cut-throat competition, heavier workloads and regulatory turmoil, City workers are facing more pressure than ever. Nightingale Hospital, the only private mental health hospital in London, launched its City unit last Thursday, where it aims to provide help for high-performing financial workers who are struggling to cope with the stigma surrounding mental health. - The Times

Canada has spent centuries mopping up surplus British talent — from dispossessed farmers in the 19th century to disillusioned video games makers a few years ago. Now it is mounting — or perhaps mountie-ing — an assault on London’s fintech industry, the companies that use cutting-edge technology to make financial services groups more efficient. Last week, in London, Charles Sousa, the minister of finance for Ontario, met British companies that are looking to expand into North America, to extol the virtues of the Toronto to Waterloo corridor — a 100-mile stretch on the northwestern bank of Lake Ontario just across the border from Niagara Falls. - The Times

Surging investment in artificial intelligence is giving the US an early advantage in the race to dominate a new era of robotics, according to investors and experts in an industry that is set to become one of the most strategically important. Recent advances in AI, particularly in a technique known as deep learning, have shifted robotics from its core industrial market into areas such as self-driving cars, fuelling debate over the benefits and threats posed by the rise of the robots. - FT

A British company has won a contract to help to build a fleet of as many as 20 floating nuclear power stations in China. Lloyd’s Register is involved in the scheme to build floating reactors that could be deployed around the world to provide electricity at remote coastal sites or in countries facing power shortages. - The Times

If you had to say which country has the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, Europe’s biggest floating solar park and electricity from the dregs of Fruit Pastilles, you might not guess it was the UK. But over the past five years, with the help of more than £10bn in subsidies, Britain has quietly become a star in the world of green power. - FT

A former RAF fighter pilot has dived into the glamorous but turbulent world of private jets after spending five years developing an app for the sector. Jonny Nicol, founder of London-based Stratajet, believes that by selling seats on the 40 per cent of planes that fly empty, and using more of Europe’s 2,100 airfields whose landing fees range from €20 to €22,000, more business travellers will be able to afford the luxury of door-to-door flights. - The Times