WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING
FINANCIAL TIMES
UK CONSUMER RECOVERY SET TO BE SLOWEST IN 180 YEARS
The UK economy is set to experience the slowest pick-up in consumer spending of any post-recession period since 1830, according to a Financial Times analysis of official forecasts. Families are expected to spend just slightly more by 2015 than they were before the financial crisis hit in 2008, as high inflation, tax rises and slow wage growth eat into disposable incomes.
BUILDERS PROP UP HOUSE SALES WITH £835M
Housebuilders have pumped £835m into purchases of the homes they build to support struggling buyers and maintain sales volumes. The Home Builders Federation, which represents the industry, said builders had invested in shared equity schemes. These have helped 30,000 first-time buyers priced out of the market over the past three years get a foot on the ladder.
SHELL AND ROSNEFT IN TALKS ABOUT ARCTIC DEAL
Royal Dutch Shell has held talks with Rosneft about exploring blocs in the Arctic that the Russian state oil champion had originally committed to BP.
Peter Voser, chief executive, said talks last week in Russia with Rosneft and Igor Sechin, the energy tsar, had looked at “a multitude of blocs”. These included the three in the South Kara Sea that had been earmarked for the alliance with BP.
HOUSE OF FRASER IN £250M BOND REFINANCING
Department store group House of Fraser has refinanced its bank debts by issuing a £250m bond. The oversubscribed issue of senior secured notes – with an annual coupon of 8.875 per cent – carries a seven-year term.
THE TIMES
MONARCH CHANGES COURSE TO BEAT DECLINE OF PACKAGE HOLIDAY
Falling demand for package holidays has forced Monarch to end more than four decades as a charter airline to become a scheduled carrier instead.
Monarch will confirm today that its strategy is changing and it will now compete directly with easyJet, Ryanair and British Airways in the scheduled market. The shift will be accompanied by a revamped brand and charging structure.
BROKEN FOOD SYSTEM WILL AGGRAVATE HUNGER, OXFAM WARNS
Food prices will double in the next 20 years, pushing millions of the world’s poorest people into hunger, due to a “broken” food system that causes a devastating gap in the food supply, a report from Oxfam warns. Food prices are set to increase by between 70 and 90 per cent by 2030.
The Daily Telegraph
OPENX RAISES $20M AS IT SIGNALS NEW ERA FOR ONLINE ADVERTISING
OpenX, a UK-founded digital display advertising firm, has raised $20m (£12m) from SAP Ventures, AOL Ventures and two giant Japanese groups to help it take on Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. The software company will use the cash to drive growth in its core real-time advertising auction services, which grew revenue 600 per cent last year after it signed exclusive ad distribution deals with the likes of Orange, the mobile phone firm.
CUCUMBER E.COLI SCARE: UKSHOPS REASSURE CONSUMERS AS SPAIN DEMANDS COMPENSATION
British supermarkets have urged shoppers to carry on buying salad, insisting their produce is free of the E.coli outbreak that has claimed 16 lives across Europe.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
LIBYA’S GOLDMAN DALLIANCE ENDS IN LOSSES, ACRIMONY
In early 2008, Libya’s sovereign-wealth fund controlled by Colonel Moammar Gadhafi gave $1.3bn to Goldman Sachs Group to sink into a currency bet and other complicated trades. The investments lost 98 per cent of their value, internal Goldman documents show. What happened next may be one of the most peculiar footnotes to the global financial crisis. In an effort to make up for the losses, Goldman offered Libya the chance to become one of its biggest shareholders, according to documents and people familiar with the matter.
TOYOTA LIFTS OUTPUT VIEW
Toyota said yesterday that it expects to resume production at 90 per cent of normal capacity during June and match last year’s output for the year.