PRESS DIGEST - British business press - Aug 17

The Sunday Times

GRID'S LOBBY BILL TOPS ONE MILLION DOLLARS

According to regulatory findings, National Grid (NG.L) spent 536,000 pounds in the first half of this year making sure its voice is heard in Washington.

Since the British utility giant took over New York's Key Span last year, half of its business now comes from America. The 11 billion dollar takeover made National Grid the second-biggest gas and electricity utility in America, and it currently serves 3.3 million customers there.

Regulatory findings show National Grid spent 557,000 dollars in the first quarter of the year lobbying on climate-change legislation and other issues, and it said a similar figure was also spent in the second quarter.

SAINSBURY PAINTS ITSELF GREEN WITH WOODEN STORE

On Monday, J Sainsbury (SBRY.L), the grocery giant, will launch its flagship store in Dartmouth, Devon, which it hopes will become the model for all its supermarkets.

The store has been made from timber rather than steel, and will be heated by a biomass boiler running on wood chips. The move is also expected to save the supermarket almost a third on its energy bills.

Neil Sachdev, commercial director at Sainsbury, said: "This is not a showcase for the sake of having a showcase."

The company insists all new stores will incorporate as many of the new green features seen in the Dartmouth site as possible, and pledged that two supermarkets a year and one convenience store would look to "stretch" the group's thinking on the environment by testing innovative technologies.

RBS SET TO SCRAP AUCTION

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) has raised nearly six billion pounds through the sale of risky loans, and is now on the cusp of abandoning the auction of its Direct Line and Churchill insurance empire.

The bank has cut its exposure to billions of pounds worth of loans used to back private-equity deals, and is in negotiations to sell a further tranche of loans to Apollo and Blackstone, the investment firms.

Even though it is thought there is only one serious bidder left in the auction, Royal Bank of Scotland is now understood to be clinging to the seven billion pound price tag it placed on its insurance operations.

The Sunday Telegraph

ICELAND BOSS IN SURPRISE BID FOR WOOLWORTHS

The founder of the Iceland frozen food chain, Malcolm Walker, has made an audacious bid approach for Woolworths WLW.L, in a move that would see him return to the company that fired him 37 years ago.

Mr Walker is leading a consortium, known to include Baugur, which has made a formal approach to Woolworth's chairman, Richard North, about acquiring the chain's 815 stores.

The consortium is interested only in Woolworths' stores, and not EUK, Woolworths Group's entertainment wholesale division, or 2 Entertain, its music and video publishing joint venture with the BBC. It is also understood that Mr Walker is only interested in a deal if the Woolworths board agrees to retain most of the group's debt and wipe out its large pension deficit.

BRIT INSURANCE TO QUIT UK OVER TAX ROW

Ernst & Young has been hired by Brit Insurance (BRE.L) to advise the company on how to quit Britain because of its increasingly uncompetitive tax regime.

The company is due to reveal that it is still reviewing its tax status when it announces its interim results next week. Brit Insurance has made no final decision about leaving, but it is understood that E&Y is assessing a number of different tax options in a move sure to rattle the government.

City lawyers and accountants are warning that as many as 15 of Britain's largest companies are hatching plans to quit the country.

FUND MANAGER IN 25 MILLION POUND PAY BONANZA

The chairman of value investor Silchester International, Stephen Butt, has paid himself over 25 million pounds in one of the most lucrative pay deals of the year.

Mr Butt delivered double-digit returns to defy the turmoil in financial markets. He took a salary of 16.5 million pounds for the year ending April 2008, plus an 8.7 million pound dividend from the company of which he owns just over 50 per cent.

Sources state Silchester generated average returns of 15 per cent per annum over 13 years.