What the Sunday papers said

SPI, Russian owner of the Stolichnaya vodka brand will this week enter the takeover frenzy surrounding Britain's Allied Domecq, ahead of a formal £7.5bn bid for the company. SPI has appointed investment bankers from HSBC to evaluate the implications of a change-of-control of Allied Domecq on the companies' joint venture to distribute and market Stolichnaya. It is thought that SPI is also interested in acquiring selected brands from Allied - The Sunday Times​.

An election debate over crime is set to be sparked this week by Home Office figures likely to show a surge in violent crime of around 8 per cent. In some parts of Britain such offences are up by nearly 50 per cent. Senior police have blamed much of the rise on fights in town centres late at night, when drinkers leave pubs and bars - The Sunday Times​

Averbury Taverns has put about 250 pubs up for sale. The sale is part of the group's attempts to churn its estate and the move will leave it with its best 450 sites - The Sunday Times​ William Hill is in talks to buy the betting-shop division of gaming group Stanley Leisure for £500m in a deal that would see it leapfrog Ladbrokes to become Britain's biggest bookmaker - The Sunday Times​ Pizza Express has moved a step closer to a swift return to the stock market after interviewing a number of investment banks in the past few days. The banks that have presented to the group's owner, investment firm TDR Capital, are Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS - The Sunday Times​

Pernod Ricard hopes to be able to table an agreed bid this week for Allied Domecq, valuing its British rival at £7.4bn. Pernod and its American backer Fortune Brands are expected to announce the deal on Thursday, to coincide with Allied's interim results - The Mail on Sunday​

Negotiations on how much Pernod would pay Allied are continuing, with the UK company understood to be looking for at least 650p a share, and preferably 670p-675p. A deal at the top end of that range would give Allied a market value of about £7.5bn - The Financial Times (weekend edition)​. Tory leader Michael Howard is pictured by the Observer leaving the King's Head in Hythe, Kent with his wife Sandra after lunch at the Shepherd Neame pub. Further evidence, no doubt, of why King's Head licensee Caroline Chambers picked up the Marketing Pub of the Year title at last month's Publican Awards​ - The Observer​

Heineken is streamlining its operations, including the early retirement in October of chief executuve Tony Ruys. The reins pass to Jan-Francois van Boxmeer, at 43 the youngest on the board, but there are fears the brewer is running simply to stand still. There are few remaining transformational deals for the company to chase in emerging markets - The Business​

Britain's most senior police officer Sir Ian Blair has called for "further consideration" of the ID cards Bill which was withdrawn before the election. In the wake of the conviction of Kamel Bourgass, an Algerian immigrant whose asylum claim had been rejected and who murdered policeman Stephen Oakes, Si Ian told the BBC: "I wasn't particularly keen on ID cards until recently - until I began to understand the way in which identity theft is carried out." - The Independent on Sunday​