LONDON (ShareCast) - Woolworths should ignore a potential bid from Iceland founder Malcolm Walker and focus on reviving its retail chain, the company's biggest shareholder, Ardeshir Naghshineh, has said, reports the Independent on Sunday.

Two of Australia’s biggest banks have sounded out HBOS about a possible break-up of the British bank’s £3 billion antipodean business, writes the Sunday Times.

The Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers is this weekend locked in talks with a group of foreign government-backed investment funds in an effort to secure billions of dollars in new equity capital, reports the Sunday Telegraph.

Currys owner DSG International will this week reveal a further fall in sales as the slowing economic environment continues to deter shoppers from buying electrical goods and other non-food items, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

British Energy (BE) will not get a better offer than French rival EDF's £12bn for a decade, Whitehall sources have claimed, reports the Independent on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Observer says Centrica is being barred by the government from making a solo bid for British Energy, according to one of the nuclear generator's largest institutional shareholders.

Britain's foreign-owned energy suppliers are sabotaging a new £1bn fuel poverty package which Gordon Brown wants to announce this week, The Observer has learnt.

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell faces damaging claims over its influence on a supposedly independent environmental audit to determine whether the world's biggest oil and gas project would receive vital bank funding, writes the Observer.

Bradford & Bingley is collecting directly from tenants to tackle arrears and repossessions on 'problem' mortgages, says the Observer.

McCarthy & Stone, the beleaguered retirement housebuilder with investors including the philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter and media baron Richard Desmond, is expected to seal an £800m refinancing deal next month, according to the Independent on Sunday.

The share-buying frenzy in Sainsbury which by last Friday saw the supermarket close nearly 10 per cent up on the back of bid speculation, was in all likelihood a share ramping exercise, according to City insiders, says the Observer.

US private equity group Apollo Management has entered the bidding war for Reed Business Information, which is being sold by parent group Reed Elsevier for £1bn, according to the Observer.

Ryanair pilots have denounced as “insane” attempts to pressurise them into flying with less fuel by imposing a cap on their safety reserves, according to the Sunday Times.

Willie Walsh has reignited the feud between British Airways and Virgin by accusing Sir Richard Branson of ducking questions on the two companies’ price-fixing activities, says the Sunday Times.

Retailers campaigning to change existing lease structures with landlords risk falling foul of competition laws according to the chief executive of the UK's largest commercial property company, Land Securities, reports the Sunday Telegraph

The directors of the UK's biggest financial institutions have escaped unscathed from the credit crunch - judging by the size of their pensions, according to the Observer

Retail bellwether John Lewis will this week open its latest store, in Leicester, but its managing director, Andy Street, has told The Independent on Sunday that the company's rapid UK expansion is set to be curtailed by the credit crunch.

Crest Nicholson, the house-builder taken private last year by HBOS and Scottish tycoon Sir Tom Hunter, has conceded that it could breach its banking covenants if the housing market continues to deteriorate, writes the Observer.

A merger between German banking giants Dresdner and Commerzbank will lead to at least 1,200 job losses at Dresdner Kleinwort, the London-based investment bank, according to advisers working on the deal, which is expected to be announced today, reports the Observer.

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