Friday newspaper round-up: Julius Baer, Brexit, L&G, British Gas

A Swiss bank that accepts only customers with at least £2m of assets is defying Brexit with plans to expand in the UK through new offices in Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow. Julius Bär will also put a small team in Belfast as it ventures beyond its UK operations in London. It is expected to hire 30 financiers for the new locations. - Guardian

Ministers need to stop feuding and agree on the shape of the transitional deal Britain wants before any future trading relationship with the EU is finalised, business leaders have warned. “There is an urgent need for government to engage properly on the most imminent risk to business from Brexit: what happens, or doesn’t, on Brexit day,” the Institute of Directors (IoD) said in a report assessing transition period options. - Guardian

Legal & General has taken its first step into the retirement housing market by acquiring an existing operator with ambitions to build 3,000 homes for older people in the next five years. The insurer has paid £40m for Inspired Villages, a company previously known as English Care Villages, with the price including two existing retirement villages and the firm’s management. – Telegraph

Property company M7 has appointed bankers to explore a £300m float of one of its vehicles in what would be one of the largest public listings in the UK this year. The firm wants to raise the money via the stock exchange in order to invest in regional property across the UK which is let to a number of tenants. – Telegraph

The City watchdog has been warned that it is failing to give financial firms a clear idea of how to prepare for Brexit with fewer than a fifth of respondents to a survey saying it was doing a good job. Only 14 per cent of more than 2,000 regulated businesses responding to the survey commissioned by the regulator on its recent performance said that the FCA was doing a good job of explaining its preparation work for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. – The Times

British Gas’s row with the government deepened after the company claimed that energy policies would soon account for more of an electricity bill than wholesale costs. Britain’s biggest energy supplier has been at loggerheads with ministers and Ofgem, the industry regulator, since announcing on Tuesday that it was raising electricity bills by 12.5 per cent. – The Times