What the Sunday papers said
The Independent on Sunday
CUSTOMS & EXCISE has suffered another embarrassing setback, with the latest collapse of a fraud trial bringing its total losses from failed prosecutions to nearly £250m.
The reverse comes as a report by the National Audit Office estimates that Customs is losing £15bn a year to duty evasion and VAT fraud.
DIAGEO and its shareholders breathed a sigh of relief last week when it finally sold Burger King to focus on the core drinks business. The shares soared five per cent following the £1bn sale to a consortium comprising Texas Pacific, Bain Capital, and Goldman Sachs Capital.
The Sunday Times
BRITAIN'S biggest planning application will be delivered to Greenwich council this week detailing plans to resuscitate the Millennium Dome and surrounding area in southeast London. A document comprising more than 1,000 pages will outline the £4bn project.
At its heart will be a £135m enclosed venue with 20,000 seats built under the roof of the dome, which will be surrounded by pubs, restaurants and a five-star hotel. The developers have dubbed it as a future "West End of the East End".
FALLING stock markets, worries over the global economic outlook and signs of slower growth in Britain have brought back the prospect of interest rate cuts by the Bank fo England in the new year. The markets had concluded the next move would be up.
The Business
THE UK pub sector has stumbled from profit warning to upbeat trading statement with frightening regularity says James Daley. Last week left matters no clearer as four of the sector's biggest names issued results of updates: two were positive and two warned of hard times.
Greene King and Wolverhampton & Dudley boasted relatively strong trading while Regent Inns and Eldridge Pope issued warnings on profits blaming a slowdown on the high streets.
The tough times have separated the winners from the losers. But the more astute stockpickers will realise there is no crisis in the pubs sector. In fact several companies are now looking very good value.
DRINKS giant Diageo has moved to bolster investor confidence with a plan to buy back shares worth £400m in the first six months of 2003.
COMPULSORY retirement at 65 will be scrapped by pensions minister Andrew Smith when he unveils the government's green paper on pensions this week.
The Sunday Telegraph
THE contents of the drinks cellar at the Paris residence of the Duke of Windsor including red and white wine, champagne, cognac, whisky, bourbon and gin, have fetched £104,300 at Christie's in Paris.
SHAREWATCH: Greene King last week announced a 10 per cent rise in interim profits but chief executive Tim Bridge has admitted there are signs that students - who account for up to 10 per cent of the company's pub takings - have cut back their drinking budgets.
Given the uncertain economic outlook for consumer spending, investors may want to take profits and sell at 687.5p.
The Sunday Express
THE value of the UK buy-out market has collapsed to only £14.3bn this year, a fall of more than 25 per cent from the 2002 figure of £19.5bn.
The Mail on Sunday
SHARES in pubs and brewers have been under pressure recently with a profits warning from JD Wetherspoon and the collapse of Old Monk, but Greene King and Belhaven both delivered solid interim figures last week.
Neither company will be immune to a consumer downturn, but their defensive qualities backed by good yields make them both worth holding.
