British Sunday business press - May 4

The Mail on Sunday

BUYERS LINING UP FOR A SLICE OF ACTION AT NOBU

Exclusive celebrity haunt Nobu, the sushi restaurant franchise, has attracted at least six potential buyers ahead of Monday's deadline for the first round of bidding. Suitors are thought to include Indian financier LDF, rag trade entrepreneur Richard Caring and DIC, the Dubai government's investment arm. Bankers from Goldman Sachs are advising and will look at proposals for stake ranging from 51 percent to 75 percent, valuing Nobu at up to 250 million pounds.

GUARDIAN APOLOGY OVER TESCO 'TAX DODGE' CLAIM

The ongoing legal battle between Tesco(TSCO.L) and The Guardian took a fresh twist on Saturday as the newspaper published an apology to the supermarket group for alleging in a front page story in February that it had avoided paying up to one billion pounds in corporation tax. The supermarket giant began legal proceedings seeking damages for "libel and malicious falsehood". The Guardian said on Saturday night: "It was always our intention to be accurate and honest and that is why we have set the record straight." Tesco appeared to be unmoved, saying: "The Guardian has a serious case to answer and we look forward to receiving their defence."

TENSIONS MOUNT AT BARCLAYS

Sources close to Barclays(BARC.L) said over the weekend that the bank's boss John Varley faces a grilling from independent directors at the next board meeting over the departure last week of Paul Idzik, the chief operating officer. Idzik's sudden resignation revealed the scale of his disillusionment with the slow pace of change at the bank and his frustration with the "over-mighty" Bob Diamond, whose Barclays Capital division is "a kingdom within a kingdom", according to one source close to the bank.

The Sunday Times

MEXICAN BILLIONAIRE SLIM BUILDS STAKE IN THE INDEPENDENT

Carlos Slim, the world's second richest man, has taken a stake in The Independent newspaper's parent company, Independent News and Media. The Mexican telecoms billionaire's arrival on the shareholder register adds a further twist to an already complex tussle between warring Irish businessmen Sir Anthony O'Reilly, whose family controls 28 percent of INM, and Denis O'Brien, who has been needling his rival for over two years as he has built up a 21 percent stake. Slim has so far built a one percent stake, but is likely to increase it further.

RBS OFFERED DEAL FOR DIRECT LINE IN SPAIN

Royal Bank of Scotland(RBS.L) has been approached by Spain's Bankinter about a buyout of their 50-50 joint venture Linea Directa, which controls five percent of the Spanish motor-insurance market. Bankinter is understood to have offered to buy out the 50 percent it does not own, in a move that values the business at up to 700 million pounds. Linea Directa has been put up for sale as part of the seven billion pound auction of RBS Insurance that Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch will launch this week.

BT PREPARES TO LAUNCH ITS ANSWER TO THE BLACKBERRY

BT(BT.L) will this week unveil a Blackberry-style device that enables users to send and receive e-mails and access the internet on the go, as it tries to kick-start its re-entry into the mobile market. The Asian manufacturer HTC is thought to have designed the gadget on which the BT launch is based. The telecoms giant expressed hope that the new device would have a bigger impact than Fusion, the company's hybrid home- and mobile-phone service, which only attracted 45,000 customers in three years.

The Sunday Telegraph

COBRA HOPES TO CHARM INVESTORS

Cobra Beer has retained NM Rothschild and City Capital Corporation as advisers to help it find hedge funds or private equity firms willing to take a stake in the lager brand served in Indian restaurants across Britain. A deal, which would also raise funds for Cobra's expansion in the UK, could still be months away from completion, said sources close to the talks. The company announced this weekend plans to bring most of its production back to Britain from Poland.

TRUCK PARTS MAKER ON AUCTION FORECOURT

Silverfleet Capital, the European private equity house, has put Jost up for sale with a price tag of up to 600 million euros (470 million pounds). Silverfleet is understood to have retained advisers to conduct an auction of Jost, the world's biggest manufacturer of trucks' parts with 1,500 staff in facilities across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Jost recently restructured, bringing in a new three-man management team to boost sales in the UK. It had global revenues of 445 million euros last year, with earnings before tax and interest believed to be about 70 million euros annually.

PEARSON GOES BACK TO SCHOOL WITH CHINA DEAL

Pearson (PSON.L), the FTSE-100 media group that publishes the Financial Times, is to acquire a chain of English language schools in China as it accelerates efforts to expand its business in the country ahead of the Beijing Olympics. The deal for LEC, which owns 15 private schools in Shanghai, is near to finalisation and likely to be announced in the coming week. China's continuing integration into the global economy has driven demand for English tuition to an all-time high.

The Independent on Sunday

STRIPPED-DOWN JARVIS SEEKS TO GET OFF THE TRAIN WITH 100 MILLION POUND SALE

Jarvis, the quoted rail contractor, is preparing the way for a sale this year. The company, chaired by former London mayoral candidate Steven Norris, was once valued at over one billion pounds but is expected to fetch about 100 million pounds. Fellow rail contractors Balfour Beatty (BALF.L) and First Engineering are included in the list of potential bidders. According to a source, Jarvis will not prepare any information memorandum but will be "proactive" in courting buyers.

NEW STAR THREATENED WITH LOSS OF 1.7 BILLION POUNDS IF MUTUAL SEVERS ITS LINKS

A leading institutional investor in New Star Asset ManagementNSAM.L has indicated that the John Duffield-led firm faces losing nearly ten percent of its assets if the performance of its fund does not improve. Family Investments, a mutual specialising in family savings accounts, has assets worth around 1.7 billion pounds under management by New Star and is believed to have explored the possibility of transferring them. Miles Bingham, head of savings and investments at the mutual, said: "We have an open-ended contract with New Star. In theory, we could leave at any time, although I'm not saying we'll do that."

T5 COMPENSATION WILL COST BAA MILLIONS

BAA is set to compensate retailers and caterers angry at the botched opening of Heathrow's Terminal 5. More than 50 retailers and 20 food outlets are thought to be in discussions with BAA about compensation following British Airways' (BAY.L) decision to delay transferring its long-haul flights to Terminal 5 until June. In the meantime, only 40,000 passengers a day will transit through the airport, compared with the 70,000 that were promised. Rupert Clevely, chief executive of Geronimo Inns, said: "We expect all this to be sorted out in the next couple of weeks."

The Observer

RBS TO END FREE BANKING FOR BUSINESSES

Royal Bank of Scotland(RBS.L) has been slammed as "mean and despicable" by customers and business organisations after it announced it was axing free banking for thousands of business account holders. It is ten days since RBS announced it was putting a 12 billion pounds rights issue to shareholders after losing billions of pounds in credit crunch write-downs. Simon Baxter, a corporate customer since 1990, said: "It's unacceptable that the bank is making loyal customers pick up the tab for mistakes it made by overextending itself in the credit markets."

MOSS BROS STILL SUITS BAUGUR

Baugur, the Icelandic investment group, will announce this week that it plans to proceed with the proposed 40.2 million pound takeover of Moss Bros, the struggling menswear chain. It tabled an indicative 42 pence-a-share offer in March and is expected to tell the City on Tuesday that it is putting the finishing touches to its financing having completed due diligence work. Baugur's retail empire includes House of Fraser and Hamleys, but not all of its ventures have worked out. It sold MK One to restructuring specialist Hilco for one pound this week, having paid 55 million pounds for it in 2004.

REPORT INTO BAE ETHICS 'WILL GIVE IT THE ALL-CLEAR'

Lord Woolf publishes his report on the ethical standards of BAE Systems (BAES.L) this week and is expected to give the defence company a clean bill of health. Groups campaigning against the arms trade have been angered that Woolf's committee - appointed last summer by BAE in light of allegations that it paid one billion pounds in bribes to secure a 40 billion pound Saudi arms deal in the eighties - has not investigated the company's past practices. "I do not think BAE will have been found to be wanting," said Howard Wheeldon, senior strategist at BGC Partners. "It will get a clean bill of health."

Prepared for Reuters by Durrants