Thursday newspaper round-up: Elon Musk, Dr Martens, HSBC

4th Apr 2024 07:29

(Sharecast News) - Delivery app riders pedalling through cities and tailbacks at drive-throughs were familiar signs of Britain's hunger for takeaway food at the peak of the Covid pandemic. Now a study suggests it became an enduring habit. After a boom in orders on Deliveroo, Just Eat and other platforms by locked-down consumers, research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) suggests the popularity of takeaways, meal deliveries and food-on-the-go bought from retailer such as sandwiches and crisps has remained above pre-pandemic levels after the removal of Covid restrictions. - Guardian

Holidaymakers will continue to face limits on the amount of liquid they can carry on flights out of the UK this summer after the government extended the deadline for airports to install new security scanners by a year. The Department for Transport had previously set a target for the introduction of 3D scanners in all UK airports by 1 June, but this has now been extended by 12 months because some major airports will not be ready in time. - Guardian

Elon Musk's Tesla is exploring constructing a multibillion dollar electric vehicle factory in India as the country's prime minister seeks to put the brakes on China's dominance. Tesla is planning to send a team to India later this month to hunt for possible locations for the plant which could be worth as much as $3bn (£2.4bn), the Financial Times reported. - Telegraph

An activist investor in Dr Martens has urged the troubled boot brand to consider a sale or merger amid concerns about its "deeply discounted" valuation. Marathon Partners Equity Management, the New York-based investment company, said it had "serious concerns" about the retailer's stagnant growth and the 80 per cent slide in share price since it listed in London three years ago. - The Times

A break up of HSBC through a spin-off of its Asian business "will not happen," the bank's chairman Mark Tucker has insisted, as bosses seek to move on from a campaign by activist investors to split the lender in two. The future of the London-listed bank became the subject of intense debate in the City two years ago after it emerged that Ping An, a Chinese insurer that is HSBC's biggest shareholder, was agitating for the lender to hive off its Asian operations as a separately listed company based in Hong Kong. - The Times