Wednesday newspaper round-up: Aviva Investors, HSBC, car finance
One of the UK’s biggest pension funds has lost more than £350m on a series of “calamitous” investments in incinerator power plants that are expected to go bust in the coming days. The Guardian understands that Aviva Investors will put three incinerators into administration this week after pouring millions of pounds into what has been described as the country’s “dirtiest form of power generation”. – Guardian
HSBC is to launch its first UK “wealth centre” in London’s upmarket Mayfair district, offering more personalised banking services and exclusive events such as wine tastings as part of a drive to win more rich customers. The lender will take up two floors of the 16-storey Smithson Tower at 25 St James’s Street – close to the Ritz Hotel and Fortnum & Mason department store – as part of a wider revamp of HSBC’s premier-tier bank service. Aimed at the sought-after “mass affluent” market, premier is a tier below private-banking clients and targets customers with £100,000 to £2m in income, assets or deposits. – Guardian
Treasury officials called retailers to make the case for Rachel Reeves’s tax raid ahead of a public letter that warned over changes announced in her maiden Budget. Retailers are understood to have been contacted by the Treasury last week to find out whether they planned on giving their support to the letter, which criticised the Chancellor’s decision to impose extra costs on the industry. – Telegraph
Britain’s official labour market statistics may be underestimating the number of people in employment by almost 1 million and overstating the extent of the country’s inactive workforce problem. The Resolution Foundation, a think tank, has calculated that official measures of the state of the labour market produced by the Office for National Statistics have undercounted the levels of employment by 930,000 since the pandemic. – The Times
A mounting scandal over mis-sold motor finance could leave lenders footing a compensation bill of as much as £30 billion, a leading credit rating agency has warned. Moody’s estimate is the highest so far and will fuel speculation that the scandal facing banks and other car loan providers will mirror the payment protection insurance debacle, which ultimately resulted in firms absorbing about £50 billion in redress costs. – The Times