Tuesday newspaper round-up: NAO, BRC, Apple, ITV

High inflation could cost the British Government tens of billions of pounds in extra interest payments because so much of its debt is index-linked. More than one-third of gilts – excluding those bought by the Bank of England – are linked to the retail price index measure of inflation, so if inflation is one percentage point higher over the next five years, payments on those bonds will rise by £26bn, the National Audit Office has warned. - Telegraph

Britain’s hard-pressed retailers have urged the chancellor to deliver a budget for shoppers later this month after the latest snapshot of activity in the high street showed consumers under further pressure in October. The British Retail Consortium said like-for-like sales in October had fallen 1% compared with the same period last year. - Guardian

Secret attempts by two of the world’s biggest companies to avoid billions of pounds in tax have been laid bare in leaked papers. Apple and Nike used offshore entities to legally minimise their global tax bill, documents show. Apple is alleged to have sidestepped a 2013 Irish crackdown on tax avoidance by moving one of its most valuable subsidiaries to the Channel Island of Jersey. - The Times

21st Century Fox was in preliminary talks to offload a significant part of its business to Walt Disney but talks broke down over a disagreement on price, sources said last night. It is understood that Disney had in recent weeks discussed buying film, television production, cable network and international distribution assets. - The Times

Amazon is shutting two Whole Foods shops in the UK just two months after completing its £10.7bn takeover of the upmarket grocery chain. The company is closing down its stores in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire and Giffnock, East Renfrewshire meaning that there will be just seven UK shops remaining, all of which are in London. - Telegraph

The Government has given a boost to ITV’s campaign to extract up to £80m a year from Virgin Media for its main channel by saying the row should be resolved commercially. ITV is attempting to charge for its main public service channel for the first time following a change in the law. It has threatened to cut off nearly four million Virgin Media households early next year if a deal is not struck. - Telegraph

Britain must avoid too much compromise with the EU over the Brexit divorce deal if it wants a speedy free trade deal with the US, one of President Donald Trump’s most senior advisers has said. Wilbur Ross, the US commerce secretary, said that a trade deal with Britain could be signed within months of Brexit, brushing aside claims that it could take 10 years for an agreement to be reached. - Telegraph

The oil industry has been named and shamed as a laggard in global efforts to increase investment to tackle water scarcity. Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil were both name-checked as the worst offenders for “persistently” failing to reveal water data to their investors via global disclosure group CPD. - Telegraph

Institutional investors are stepping up pressure on companies to take account of the “wider social context” when they award big increases in executive pay and annual bonuses. The Investment Association, which represents the big fund managers, said in an open letter to FTSE 350 companies that its members were concerned that incremental bonus rises and automatic salary increases were leading to “a substantial increase to overall remuneration” for bosses. - The Times

The board of Johnston Press have received a formal demand for a vote to install Alex Salmond as chairman, setting the scene for a potentially explosive confrontation between the newspaper publisher and its shareholders. Christen Ager-Hanssen, the company’s biggest shareholder with a 20pc stake, issued the call for an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) via his lawyers on Monday afternoon. - Telegraph

Facebook has launched a person-to-person payments service in the UK, extending the social network’s reach into financial services and stealing a march on Apple. The US tech giant’s Messenger app will allow users to instantly send funds back and forth on their mobile phones or computers with no fees after linking their accounts to their debit cards. - Telegraph

The government has been accused of failing to act on a pledge to review redundancy protections for pregnant women and new mothers, as a report warned current laws were insufficient. The Maternity Action charity said ministers committed to a review in January, but have not consulted on the issue since then nor provided any timeframe for doing so. - Guardian