Sunday newspaper round-up: Melrose, GKN, Corbyn, Brexit, Heathrow, Toys R Us
Melrose has made a dramatic final pitch for GKN by promising to plough £1bn into the engineering titan’s cash-strapped pension fund. The turnaround firm is understood to have bowed to demands from GKN’s pension trustees to substantially raise its initial offer of a £150m injection for the fund. The move could topple one of the biggest obstacles to the £8.1bn takeover bid. - The Sunday Times
Jeremy Corbyn will face expensive and unwinnable legal battles with investors if he presses ahead with plans to nationalise swathes of British industry, one of the world’s top law firms has warned. Amid rising City fear of a hard Left Labour government, a new analysis by the Magic Circle firm Clifford Chance has found that attempts to take control of top companies at bargain prices would face strong resistance in the courts as a violation of human rights and international treaties. - Sunday Telegraph
Britain’s biggest business lobby group is seeking to prevent the loss of as much as €1bn (£882m) in annual European funding for scientific research and technological development, which has been thrown into doubt by Brexit. According to a briefing paper seen by the Guardian, the CBI is calling for the government to state its intention to renew its membership of the EU framework programme for research and development after Brexit. - Observer
The over-60s must remain on their guard and brush upon their detective skills – to avoid falling foul of a tidal wave of financial scams. New figures show this age group is now being targeted by conmen. One in five say they have been approached more than ten times by tricksters in the past year with resulting losses amounting to an average £400 each. - Mail on Sunday
Heathrow is under pressure to cut blockbuster dividends for its shareholders while it builds a £14bn third runway. Ministers and airlines are demanding that Europe’s busiest airport holds down charges - which could see the industry watchdog, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), cap payouts. - The Sunday Times
Britain risks being held to ransom by Russia unless the vulnerable energy system is fortified, the Government has been warned amid escalating tensions with Europe’s main gas supplier. As relations with Russia sour, energy infrastructure bosses been told by security officials to bolster their defences to guard against a crippling cyber attack on power plants or the national grid. - Sunday Telegraph
Rogue bosses will face fines or prosecution for putting the pensions of their workers at risk under new laws to be unveiled by the government. Ministers will confirm this week that they will target reckless employers with new rules designed to protect pension pots when companies go under. - Observer
Investigators are in pursuit of more than £580m that was funnelled out of Toys R Us’s UK business and into a tax haven on the British Virgin Islands. Accountants and hedge funds are understood to be on the trail of the cash - a loan that was handed over by the British arm of the toy retailer just months before it went bust. - Mail on Sunday
The upmarket housebuilder Berkeley Homes is eyeing an approach for the Earls Court site owned by Capital & Counties, the troubled FTSE 250 property developer. Berkeley, run by veteran builder Tony Pidgley, is understood to have held a preliminary conversation with CapCo about the west London scheme in the past six weeks, but sources said it had not progressed. - The Sunday Times
The Government has been urged to use Brexit to slash red tape for small banks to boost competition and follow the deregulatory path set by the US. Paul Lynam, the influential boss of challenger bank SecureTrust Bank, told The Daily Telegraph leaving the EU would enable Britain to level the field for smaller lenders and help break the dominance of the big five – Barclays, Lloyds, RBS, HSBC and Santander. - Sunday Telegraph
The expected rise in US interest rates will increase financial pressures on developing countries already struggling with a 60% jump in their debt repayments since 2014, a leading charity has warned. The Jubilee Debt Campaign said a study of 126 developing nations showed that they were devoting more than 10% of their revenues on average to paying the interest on money borrowed – the highest level since before the G7 agreement to write off the debts of the world’s poorest nations at Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005. - Observer
A giant Russian gas company controlled by the Kremlin used the City of London money markets to raise nearly £700m on the same day as Theresa May delivered a key speech threatening sanctions. Gazprom completed the deal despite rising tensions between the British government and Moscow. - Mail on Sunday
Home furnishings designer Ashley Wilde and pop star Kylie Minogue are suing discount retailer B&M for selling two products named “Kylie”. Wilde and Minogue’s business said in a High Court claim that B&M’s bed linen and cushion - called “Kylie Sparkle” and “Kylie Boudoir” – were a “deliberate attempt to imitate” Minogue’s products, causing “damage to the reputation and goodwill” of the singer’s business. - The Sunday Times
Rolls-Royce, the engineering giant, is joining the race to build the next generation of energy storage “batteries” using the same material originally designed for hard-wearing contact lenses. The FTSE 100 group said it will work with Superdielectrics, a research company, to use the material to challenge the dominance of traditional batteries. - Sunday Telegraph
Ministers have been urged to bring forward their 2040 ban on new diesel and petrol car sales by a decade, a move which an environmental think tank said would almost halve oil imports and largely close the gap in the UK’s climate targets. The Green Alliance said a more ambitious deadline of 2030 is also needed to avoid the UK squandering its leadership on electric cars. - Observer
Sir Martin Sorrell, the head of advertising giant WPP, is on course for a big pay cut this year, leaving him with his lowest total package since 2011. The 73-year-old, who founded the ad firm in 1985, is likely to see his remuneration fall from £48m in 2016 to £15m for 2017. In 2015, Sorrell's total pay hit more than £70m. - Mail on Sunday