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Wednesday newspaper round-up: BG, Aviva, Unilever

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Date: Wednesday 30 Apr 2008

LONDON (ShareCast) - BG Group, the UK oil and gas exploration group, has made an unsolicited takeover offer to buy Origin Energy that values Australia’s second-biggest electricity and gas retailer at A$12.9bn ($12bn), reports the FT.

Ministers are preparing for a fresh confrontation with the road haulage industry as the £5 gallon of petrol became a reality at the pumps yesterday. Fuel protests returned as hauliers demanded help from oil companies and the Treasury, which is raking in huge surpluses from record petrol prices. The cost of filling an average car could reach £84 next year, one consumer body will say today, reports the Times.

Aviva, Britain’s largest insurer, has risked uproar by announcing plans to ditch the Norwich Union brand name. Andrew Moss, Aviva’s chief executive, signed the death warrant for Norwich Union as part of a global drive to unify the group under a single brand. “It is clear we need one name our customers will recognise wherever they are in the world,” he said. “The migration to the Aviva name will take place over the next two years in the UK, Poland and Ireland,” reports the Times.

One of the City's leading investment banks has launched an outspoken attack on the Office of Fair Trading - accusing it of pursing a "vendetta" against retailers. The comments - by Mike Tattersall, a director at Cazenove and retail analyst - followed raids by the OFT last week and the launch of a probe into allegations of wide ranging price-fixing. In a note to clients, Mr Tattersall rejected suggestions retailers were guilty of price-fixing, writes the Telegraph.

Iconic British brands such as Marmite and Pot Noodle are being spun off into a separate company by Unilever, raising the chances of the multinational selling them. Unilever is transferring 14 European food brands from Britain, France and Germany into a unit being managed from Rotterdam. The British brands also include Bovril and the spicy salami Peperami. Other products, such as Colman's mustard, PG Tips and Scottish Blend tea, will remain in the main Unilever fold, reports the Times.

Alistair Darling sought to bolster the Government’s battered image in the City yesterday by announcing a task force aimed at keeping the UK’s corporate tax regime competitive. Mr Darling said that the working group would have a remit to ensure that competitiveness remained at the heart of any future reforms to the tax system. The FT adds that the move follows decisions by Shire, the UK’s third-biggest pharmaceutical company, and United Business Media, the publisher, to relocate headquarters to Ireland for tax reasons.

Dawn Airey has left ITV to join rival Five as chairman and chief executive just eight months after Michael Grade lured her to take charge of ITV’s content division. Ms Airey had been seen as a potential successor to Mr Grade, who is due to relinquish his executive role and become non-executive chairman in 2010. Senior ITV insiders said her departure followed differences over the way the business was developing, reports the FT.

The days of City “hubris” must come to an end, the Bank of England cautioned yesterday in an extraordinary attack by Mervyn King, the Governor, on excessive pay packages and heavy risk-taking. Mr King said that the £50 billion bail-out extended to cash-strapped banks should not be seen as an opportunity to continue paying multimillion-pound bonuses to executives who gambled with other people’s money, writes the Times.

The City watchdog threatened yesterday to step up criminal prosecutions and to increase fines for market abuse after more than a quarter of last year's takeovers showed signs of insider trading. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) found that informed price movements (IPMs) took place in about 28% of mergers and acquisitions in the FTSE 350 last year, slightly ahead of 2006. There were IPMs in about 23 per cent of cases in 2005, reports the Times.

EMI pension trustees have asked the Pensions Regulator to conduct an independent review of their pension scheme after talks with the music giant broke down. In a heightened row over the scheme, the trustees have written to its 22,000 members, accusing EMI of failing to offer "meaningful and watertight security" for the fund. The trustees have been battling for extra funding for the pension plan, which has £950m of assets, following Terra Firma's £4bn takeover of the music group last August, writes the Times.

Fears that the British economy could be sliding into recession intensified last night, with the latest figures from the high street and the housing market showing a dramatic decline in activity. According to the Bank of England, the number of mortgage approvals for new house purchases fell from 72,000 to 64,000 in March, a level not seen since the housing crash of the early 1990s, reports the Independent.