The Independent says that British Airways owner International Airlines Group (IAG) won a major battle with labour unions yesterday, ending the threat of industrial action at its Spanish unit Iberia with an agreement that will save it 250m euros per annum. IAG has accepted a Spanish government mediator’s plan to reduce its job cuts target from 3,800 staff to 3,141. Unions are said to be close to accepting the offer.
UK banking group Lloyds is to raise up to £400m in the coming days by selling part of its stake in wealth management firm St James’s Place in an effort to bolster its capital cushion, writes The Guardian. The paper highlights that St James’s Place’s shares have rallied strongly in the past few months, rising from around 400p in December to 530p by Monday’s close.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has said that the coalition plans to put the Treasury and Bank of England’s Funding for Lending Scheme “on steroids” following a dip in lending in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to the Financial Times. The paper writes that the government wants the scheme to run beyond 2013 and skewed towards business lending rather than loans for property.
A survey by recruitment company Manpower has shown that a greater proportion of public-sector bosses are planning to employ more workers than private-sector chiefs in the second quarter of 2013, writes The TImes. This is the first time since the coalition was formed that hiring in the public sector is set to outpace the private sector, the paper says.
The Telegraph says that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is investigating alleged “accounting improprieties” at UK software group Autonomy, which was acquired by US giant Hewlett-Packard in 2011. Ahead of HP’s annual meeting with shareholders this week, the SFO is looking into whether the PC manufacturer overpaid in the $11.1bn deal.
