What the Sunday papers said

The Observer

• The end of Happy Hours is nigh - Councils will be given the power to intervene in cases where happy hour stunts are designed purely to get people drunk. Read more on thePublican.com.

With no large family shareholders and a tidy cash pile, Scottish & Newcastle is "doubly vulnerable" to a takeover once it has sold its pubs. The most obvious merger is with Carlsberg, which jointly owns a big brewing operation in eastern Europe with S&N. Anheuser Busch of the US or SABMiller are others.

The Mail on Sunday​

• Sky is planning a winner-takes-all bid for live Premiership football matches. The move could torpedo efforts by the Premier League to appease competition watchdogs by splitting the games into four packages.

Unilever and Allied Domecq have been targeted by US lawyers seeking billions of dollars in damages from fast-food makers in "fat kid" court cases. Unilever's Ben & Jerry's and Allied Domecq's Baskin Robbins ice cream businesses have been warned they will be sued unless they alert consumers to the risk of obesity from eating too much ice cream.

The Independent on Sunday​

• Seven bidders have emerged for the up-for-sale Scottish & Newcastle Retail estate, with offers ranging from £2.3bn to £2.5bn. Mitchells & Butlers is a frontrunner but most other bids are in the form of joint ventures, including Pubmaster and BC Partners; Nomura and Laurel; Spirit Group and Texas Pacific; and CVC and Cinven. Guy Hands' Terra Firma is also in the running.

Cognac is off the rocks, thanks to the likes of Busta Rhymes and Snoop Dogg. The finest French brandy, traditionally associated with conservative, white males, has become the tipple of choice for American rap musicians and their fans.

Sir John Harvey Jones, former chairman of ICI and one of the most respected businessmen in Britain, has attacked the "fat cat" culture of UK directors. Sir John said high pay and so-called "pay for failure" were harming UK business.

Despite the crowded UK coffee-shop market, Italian chain Segafredo Zanetti Espresso has plans to open 100 new coffee shops in the UK over the next five years.

The Sunday Telegraph​

• Business quote of the week: "I am also thinking of banning anyone who goes to dinner parties. They're a metropolitan habit which endangers pubs and other high cultural institutions of the time," said Tim Martin, the chairman of JD Wetherspoon, who has outlawed swearing in his pubs.

SHAREWATCH: Shares in Domino Pizza jumped after the company said profits would be ahead of expectations. The group has ambitious plans to almost double its 272 outlets over four years.

Sunday Express​

• SHAREWATCH: Cadbury Schweppes - a poor first half confirmed that apart from UK confectionary, all parts of the business were under pressure. The second half is unlikely to be much better. Further troubles in Europe make shares a sell at 362.5p.

Interest rates are set to fall further still from a 48-year low and could go down as far as 2.75 per cent, economists have predicted.

The Sunday Times​

• Public borrowing under Gordon Brown is predicted to exceed that under John Major, new City forecasts show. They suggest that borrowing will rise to £50 billion a year.

Nearly 30 organisations from the gaming industry have joined forces in an effort to persuade the government of the economic benefits of liberalising the sector's outdated rules and regulations.

Rumours of a bust-up between financier Robin Saunders and property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz, two of the major backers of Pubmaster, have been denied.