Monday newspaper round-up: Queen, LSE, SABMiller

The Queen has broken her silence about the potential break-up of the United Kingdom by warning Scots to think “very carefully about the future” before casting their votes in the independence referendum.

With only four days to go to the polls and the contest on a knife edge, the monarch made a hugely significant intervention by stating she hoped Scots would consider closely what their “important” votes would mean. - The Daily Telegraph

British companies are on course to raise a record amount of money this year from flotations on the London Stock Exchange’s main market. By the end of last month, they had tapped investors for £7.4bn. At that rate, UK companies will have raised more than £11bn by the year-end from initial public offerings. According to Capita Asset Services, which handles the administration of new issues and which compiled the figures, the total would exceed by 56% the record amount raised in 2006. – The Times

SABMiller has sounded out the owners of Heineken about an £82bn mega-merger as the FTSE 100 drinks group attempts a pre-emptive move against a possible bid by Anheuser-Busch InBev. In the past fortnight, SAB, whose brands include Foster’s and Pilsner Urquell, made a preliminary approach about a buyout of the €34bn (£27bn) Amsterdam-quoted brewer, which was firmly rebuffed by the Dutch group’s founding family. Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken controls the family holding and is known to favour independence. – The Times

Hundreds of business owners affected by Royal Bank of Scotland’s “turnaround” division for struggling companies are planning to sue the bank through a group legal action. Small and medium-sized companies who claim that they were exploited and, in some cases, destroyed as a result of the activities of the bank’s global restructuring (GRG) division are joining forces to seek compensation from the lender. – The Times

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko faces rising criticism for his decision to delay implementation of part of a European Union deal to avoid threatened Russian retaliation. A senior diplomat resigned in protest over the weekend, and pro-European politicians who are competing with Mr. Poroshenko's party in parliamentary elections in October blasted the decision as caving to Russia, which wants Ukraine to give up the deal and remain in its orbit. – The Wall Street Journal Europe

Phones 4u went into administration on Sunday night, putting 5,596 jobs at risk after the retailer said it would not open its doors on Monday. The closure of the retail chain that made the entrepreneur John Caudwell a multimillionaire comes after mobile network EE decided to stop selling through Phones 4u. – The Guardian

Home ownership is becoming an "exclusive members' club", with today's typical first-time buyer needing a deposit almost 10 times as big as that required in the early 1980s, according to the National Housing Federation (NHF). In a report titled Broken Market, Broken Dreams, the organisation says two-thirds of first-time buyers receive financial help from their parents – a figure it says has doubled in five years. – The Guardian

David Cameron is expected to announce air strikes as early as next week against the Islamist “monsters” who murdered David Haines and are threatening the life of another British hostage. Mr Haines became the first Briton to be murdered by a man believed to be the British-accented terrorist known as “Jihadi John”, who has previously beheaded two American journalists. – The Daily Telegraph