Sunday newspaper round-up: Sainsbury-Home Retail, RBS, IHG, Ladbrokes

31st Jan 2016 16:24

(ShareCast News) - As Tuesday's takeover deadline approaches, Sainsbury's has made a bid of 150p per share for Argos owner Home Retail Group, which is shy of the 170p apparently being demanded. The Sunday Telegraph cited sources that suggested a middle-ground 160p bid would be enough to announce the deal and gain a deadline extension to win over wavering shareholders.Home Retail's near-20% shareholder, Schroders, has told Sainsbury's that it wants around 165p, according to the Sunday Times, which would value Argos at roughly £1.4bn. Moreover, if the supermarket group walks away due to the hardball stance of Home Retail chief executive John Walden, he is likely to lose his job before long, other institutional sources warned.Rival supermarket Tesco will cut staff overtime and Sunday pay next week as boss Dave Lewis looks to continue his cost cutting strategy, having last week ceased 24-hour trading at all its stores. The grocer's management, the Mail on Sunday said, agreed a door with the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers.Discount grocer Lidl has ramped up its store roll-out plans, with 48 planning applications filed in the last quarter of 2015, nearly three times as many as fellow discounter Aldi, which will keep the price pressure on its Big Four supermarket rivals for some time to come. After filing 56 in the first three quarters, this was a significant acceleration, the Sunday Telegraph said, and was miles ahead of the 22 convenience store applications of Sainsbury's, seven from Tesco, four from Asda and two from Morrisons.Secure Trust, the AIM-listed lender, could make an audacious bid to buy Royal Bank of Scotland's Williams & Glyn subsidiary. After failed attempts to sell to Santander and then to float the business, RBS could begin an auction in the coming weeks, the Sunday Times reported, with ex-RBS executive Paul Lynam hopeful his new Secure Trust vehicle will battle Virgin Money and a returning Santander. The North Sea oil industry has pleaded for the Treasury to halve the current tax burden that companies pay on top of 30% corporation tax. The Sunday Telegraph reported that Oil and Gas UK (OGUK) has drawn up plans to lobby for a "very bold move" of scrapping the 20% and 17% supplementary taxes charges paid in the Chancellor's forthcoming Budget.Elsewhere in the UK oil sector, Jim Ratcliffe's giant Ineos petrochemicals company was reported by the Sunday Telegraph as poised to begin town hall meetings near potential exploration sites in England and planned to submit fracking planning applications in the spring, with "tens of" test well drilled this year. After Cuadrilla's high-profile planning rejections last year, Third Energy could be the company that carries out the first UK fracking in 2016 as government ministers seem poised to intervene to usher applications through.Industry giants BP and Shell are due to reveal results this Thursday that will lay bare billions of pounds of asset write-downs and plummeting profits. BP is forecast to unveil a two-thirds collapse in profits to $730m, while it is predicted that Shell will to post a 57% plunge in profits to $1.8bn, the Sunday Times reported, with both companies expected to maintain their dividends.InterContinental Hotels (IHG) is preparing to return a £700m to shareholders via a share buyback after it missed out on a number of hotel deals. IHG is due to unveil the return as part of February's final results announcement, according to sources cited by the Sunday Times.Amid worries about BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce keeping to deadline and budget on the £31bn Successor submarine project, the government has begun working on plans to keep things on track. One idea, the Sunday Times said, was to create an agency similar to that which oversees the HS2 rail line.Property company Capital & Counties could have found a buyer for its Olympia exhibition centre. The Madison Square Garden Company (MSGC), which also owns the New York Knicks basketball team and the Rangers ice hockey franchise, was reported by the Sunday Times as leading a field of about six bidders for the £300m historic exhibition venue in London's Kensington.Ladbrokes and Gala Coral could sell 400 betting shops in order to smooth the passage of their merger through the regulatory process, the Sunday Times wrote. Satisfying objections highlighted by the Competitions & Markets Authority, the sale could generate almost £120m for the bookmakers.The new strategy announced by Grainger's new CEO Helen Gordon last week to push into the rental market is "unexciting and disappointing", according to activist 3.4% investor Crystal Amber. AIM-listed Crystal Amber, which claims to be a bridge between the owners and parties interested in potential takeover bids, said the company was "now effectively up for sale".Facebook was revealed to have paid only 4% on its billions of overseas profits dollars. In the wake of Google's controversial tax settlement, this revelation threatens to pitch the social network into the political firestorm in the UK and Europe, the Sunday Times said.Google's UK arm could avoid future efforts to increase its tax payments even if rules are changed to avert further public uproar. The US internet giant's head office in California could, inside sources told the Mail on Sunday, simply charge the UK arm more for its use of technology and services.Wealth manager Tilney Bestinvest is planning a £700m merger with rival Towry, according to insiders cited by the Sunday Times. Tilney's private equity owner Permira is "aggressively pursuing" the deal, while Towry's owners, Palamon, have failed in several efforts to sell in recent years.The National Audit Office has confirmed it will investigate George Osborne's decision to scrap a £1bn prototype carbon capture scheme which cost the taxpayer at least £60m, according to the Observer, which noted that Energy minister Andrea Leadsom had said last week that CCS had not necessarily been ditched completely. Shell and SSE were developing a trial CCS scheme in Scotland, while Drax was also developing a project at its coal-fired plant in North Yorkshire.Slater & Gordon, the Australian law firm that bought Quindell's personal injury claims arm last year, has begun debt restructuring talks as questions about its finances grow, the Sunday Telegraph said. Lenders to the company have hired turnaround experts in the UK.