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Sunday newspaper round-up: Barclays, Lloyds TSB, Expro International

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Date: Sunday 22 Jun 2008

LONDON (ShareCast) - Barclays chief executive John Varley will this week reveal that Singapore's Temasek, China's Development Bank, Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui and the Qatar Investment Authority are the investors behind an estimated £4bn cash injection into the bank, says the Independent on Sunday.

The Sunday Times adds that a senior member of the Qatari royal family has thrown Barclays’ fundraising efforts into jeopardy after raising legal claims against the bank over an alleged €50m (£40m) fraud. The billionaire sheikh, a member of Qatar’s ruling Al Thani family, claims that gross negligence by Barclays allowed an employee to siphon off sums of about €4m a month from a personal account in Marbella.

Lloyds TSB has made a tentative approach to buy Germany’s Dresdner Bank, which has been put up for auction by its parent company, the insurance giant Allianz. The British bank is believed to have begun work on a potential deal, as part of a review of opportunities in Germany and the wider continent, writes the Sunday Times.

A group of powerful institutional investors will tomorrow attempt to block the £1.81bn takeover of Expro International, the oil services group, after the company chose to discard the higher last-minute offer. Shareholders have reacted furiously to news that an eleventh-hour £1.82bn offer from the US industrial giant Halliburton was rejected by Expro's board late on Friday night just ahead of a deadline to trump an agreed deal with a Candover-led private equity consortium, says the Sunday Telegraph.

Buyout baron Henry Kravis is believed to be running the slide rule over a possible bid for Babcock & Brown, the heavily indebted conglomerate. Babcock's wide range of interests include real estate advisory and infrastructure work, and it was part of the consortium that last week bought Angel Trains from Royal Bank of Scotland, reports the Independent on Sunday.

Allstate, the American financial giant, has appointed Lehman Brothers to mastermind its purchase of the £6bn insurance arm of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBSi). Allstate, the largest home and car insurer in the US, is one of four bidders left in the frame to buy RBSi, along with Allianz of Germany, the US firm Travelers and Switzerland's Zurich, which is being advised by Citigroup, according to the Independent on Sunday.

Tesco has been accused of using underhand tactics after it used a local retailer to "front" a planning application for a massive supermarket development. The application for an 80,000 square foot store in Barnstaple, Devon, was submitted in the name of local retailer Brian Ford's, despite Tesco having acquired the independent retailer a year earlier, writes the Sunday Telegraph.

Apple and HMV, beware. Amazon.com, the world's biggest online retailer, is preparing to launch its digital music service in Britain as it attempts to expand its share of one of the world's fastest-growing consumer industries, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

Angus Monro, the former Matalan and Marks & Spencer executive, is enlisting the support of Permira, one of Europe's biggest private equity firms, to target some of Britain's struggling high street retailers. Monro is assembling a war chest and will target a struggling chain with a turnover of at least £1bn. He is believed to have secured backing from Permira, the New Look co-owner, and is in talks with other private equity houses, reports the Sunday Telegraph.

ITV wants to slash £150m from its budget for public service broadcasting such as news, regional and children’s programmes by 2012, when the analogue television signal will be switched off, says the Sunday Times.

Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Active has made an offer to buy parts of Esporta, the beleaguered fitness club chain up for sale, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

Tanfield, the vehicle manufacturer that has been criticised for poor investor communications and disclosure, is seeking to repair its relations with the City by appointing a "tier one" broker and bringing in a heavyweight non-executive director. The move comes after pressure from leading shareholders who are unhappy about the company's share price, which has slumped by 65 per cent over the last year, writes the Sunday Telegraph.

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