LONDON (ShareCast) - The UK economy is heading for recession next year and unemployment could top two million by 2010. That's the gloomy prognosis from the Ernst & Young Item Club, which publishes its summer forecast tomorrow, says the Independent on Sunday.

HBOS, Britain's biggest mortgage provider, will tomorrow reveal that its £4bn rights issue to raise extra capital to cope with the credit crunch has been one of the biggest fund-raising flops in UK corporate history, writes the Observer.

The crack corporate recovery team hired on Friday to value the portfolios of Dawnay, Day's failed property companies, will take at least three weeks to establish their sale prices, says the Independent on Sunday.

The London-based $8bn property investment firm Topland has approached Dawnay, Day Group and its lender Norwich Union asking to begin talks about the beleaguered conglomerate's UK property assets, writes the Sunday Telegraph.

Robert Dudley, the embattled chief executive of TNK-BP, has accused the group’s Russian shareholders of “deliberately polarising the organisation along nationalistic lines” and warned that their efforts to oust him “will surely destroy value in our company,” says the Sunday Times.

Meanwhile, BP has blocked a $1.8 bn dividend payment due to be paid from its Russian joint venture in an attempt to regain the advantage in its bitter fight with its billionaire partners, The Sunday Telegraph reveals

The oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to sell its stake in the £2.5 billion London Array, the world’s largest offshore wind farm, to Eon and Dong Energy, its former partners, says the Sunday Times.

A massive pensions liability at beleaguered housebuilder Taylor Wimpey is scaring off potential buyers, says the Observer.

The Treasury is ready to come forward with a package of measures to stabilise the housing market, but no action is expected until the autumn, according to the Sunday Times.

Tesco, the country's biggest supermarket, will back calls for legislation to create a supermarkets tsar, should the big 10 grocers fail to accept such authority voluntarily, reports the Independent on Sunday.

An activist American hedge fund has drawn up detailed plans to buy BSkyB’s 17.9% stake in ITV, says the Sunday Times.

Concern is growing that Anglo Irish Bank, best known for lending hundreds of millions to UK property investors, will have to dramatically increase its provision to cover exposure to falling UK and Irish real estate markets, says the Observer.

HSBC has held talks with China's main sovereign investment fund over a potential investment in Europe's largest bank, The Sunday Telegraph has learned, says the Sunday Telegraph.

An extraordinary war of words has broken out between Jon Wood, boss of Monaco-based hedge fund SRM Global, and Nick Brown, Minister for the North East, over the collapse of Northern Rock, says the Sunday Telegraph.

The Royal Bank of Scotland has stepped in to lead the rescue of Four Seasons, the debt-laden nursing-home chain, after the group’s owner, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), abandoned salvage plans, writes the Sunday Times.

A revolutionary method of removing underground copper cable, which could help speed up BT’s plans for super-fast broadband, is being introduced to the UK, says the Sunday Times.

Bookmaker William Hill has begun searching for a new online supremo to take charge of its internet operations, reports the Sunday Times.

A row is brewing at Caledonia Investments, where shareholders are being advised to vote against a resolution at the annual meeting to allow the company to donate £75,000 to the Conservative Party, reports the Observer.

United Airlines is this week expected to announce emergency funding worth at least $1bn (£500m), as soaring fuel prices and dwindling passenger numbers continue to give America's biggest airlines a rough ride, reports the Observer.

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