Friday newspaper round-up: Tandem, petrol prices, Amazon, M&A
House of Fraser is planning to invest as much as £35m in digital challenger bank Tandem as part of a tie-up that will see the upstart lender offer services to shoppers at the department store chain. The retailer, which was bought by Chinese conglomerate Sanpower in a £480m deal in 2014, is planning to offer “financial solutions” to its customers through Tandem. The chain will outline more details of the partnership when it lays out its broader five-year strategic plan in the first-half of next year. – Telegraph
Petrol prices are rising sharply in the first signs of what could be a new wave of inflation, putting pressure on household budgets and potentially slowing the economy down. Fuel cost 7.4pc more in November than it did a year earlier, according to Asda’s income tracker, as official figures showed inflation hit a two-year high of 1.2pc. - Telegraph
Working people in Britain must get a “new bargain” in 2017 that gives them a fairer share of the country’s economic gains and that turns the tide in an increasingly precarious jobs market, the head of the Trades Union Congress has urged. In her new year’s message, Frances O’Grady also pressed the government to ensure workers’ rights are maintained and expanded as the UK prepares to leave the EU, and warned of the threat of “bad bosses” using Brexit to water down rules such as protections from working excessive hours. - Guardian
Amazon has filed a patent for flying warehouses that could use a fleet of drones to make deliveries to customers. A patent document filed in 2014 in the US describes giant airships as “airborne fulfilment centres” (AFCs) that could be stationed above metropolitan areas and used to store and quickly deliver items at times of high demand, using drones dispatched directly from the airship. - Guardian
Mergers and acquisitions involving British companies have plummeted by more than 50 per cent this year after a string of global events including the Brexit vote sharply depressed dealmaking activity. In the worst performance for three years, M&A deal volumes in Britain fell to $355 billion, a steep drop from $603 billion last year, according to data from Dealogic. In 2014 almost $390 billion of deals were agreed. – The Times
The Leeds-based lender considering a bid for more than 300 branches being sold by the Royal Bank of Scotland has hired two senior executives from the state-backed lender as it looks to bulk up its team ahead of a formal offer. CYBG, the owner of Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank, has hired Mark Fisher, a former manager at RBS and the executive responsible for managing its merger with NatWest more than a decade ago, as a consultant ahead of a bid for Williams & Glyn. – The Times