What the Sunday papers said - 4 November
The Sunday Telegraph
The Punch Group has begun talks with Laurel Pub Company over a £5.5bn double merger which would create the biggest pubco in Britain. It would establish a dual business with the group controlling 12 per cent or one in eight bars. Punch currently owns 5,100 pubs and the Morgan Grenfell-owned Laurel has 2,500. A deal would be a precursor to stockmarket flotations for the enlarged group's businesses which would be split into two companies, one owning about 5,800 tenanted pubs and the other 1,800 managed pubs.The talks are described as 'informal' but a merger is seen by both sides as one answer to how venture capital owners of both companies can secure an exit from their pub investments at a handsome profit. Read more on thePublican.com.
The Sunday Telegraph has named Richard North of Six Continents as its Finance Director of the Year. Mr North was picked because he has been "the financial brains behind the manoeuvres that have transformed Bass over the past year".
Sunday Business
Coors, the US brewer, has appointed Morgan Stanley to advise it on a possible bid for Carling, Britain's biggest selling beer. It is believed to be hunting a private equity partner with which to make a joint bid.The US company is one of several to have registered an interest in bidding for Carling. Dutch company Heineken is favourite to secure it, while Anheuser-Busch, maker of Budweiser is also likely to enter the bid.
The Sunday Times
Britain's economy is in for a "bloody" winter and needs a half-point cut from the Bank of England this week, says Digby Jones, the CBI director-general. Mr Jones, speaking ahead of the CBI's annual conference, which begins today in Birmingham, said it was essential the Bank kept "wind in the sails" of the economy.
The CBI will today publish the results of a survey of 250 businesses, carried out by Mori, to assess the impact of the global slowdown on Britain. It is expected to confirm that British business is taking a severe hit.
The Observer
Apparently Hugh Osmond and Luke Johnson have put their handbags down in the latest round of one of the City's best-known feuds. Mr Osmond had bought up a two per cent stake in Mr Johnson's mussels-and-chips Belgo chain to play a joke on his old college buddy.The move caused a bit of a stink and prompted an apology from Mr Osmond, who said: "I spoke with Luke on the telephone yesterday. I said 'Sorry about all this Belgo kerfuffle'. When I took the stake I didn't realise I would create all this hullabaloo. I'm certainly not trying to buy the company." The entrepreneurs were originally business partners - building up the Pizza Express empire straight from university - until they fell out last year when Mr Osmond invoked a non-compete clause that prevented Mr Johnson bidding for the 3,000-strong Whitbread pub estate. Punch was also in the bidding and Mr Johnson, a shareholder, had signed the clause in 1999. He was rendered 'apoplectic' by the move, according to colleagues. Read more on thePublican.com.
The Sunday Express
The bosses of London's top retailers and tourist businesses will hold crisis talks today to agree ways to revive trade following terrorist attacks on September 11. The business heads - who first met at a private dinner hosted by the London Tourist Board (LTB) last week - include David Thomas, chief executive of Whitbread's Marriott hotel group; Chez Gerard restaurateur Laurence Isaacson; Hilton Hotels managing director Grant Hearn and Hyatt hotel chain chiefs.
NatWest bosses have been left red-faced by the latest advertising campaign that repeats a theme of attacking rivals for closing branches, with some becoming 'trendy wine bars'. Copies of internal reports written by NatWest sub-contractors show they were repeatedly sent to carry out refurbishment work on branches that had closed.One entry reads: "Middlesbrough: we went to the correct address but the bank had been turned into a wine bar." Another, for Hartlepool, said: "Closed down. Now a wine bar." Sub-contractors listed 29 branches where they were asked to work that had closed.
The Independent on Sunday
No industry-related news
The Mail on Sunday
No industry-related news
