Friday newspaper round-up: Housebuilding, Ryanair, Metro Bank, KPMG
Housebuilding across England has fallen to the slowest quarterly rate for three years, according to official figures, despite a promise by the government of a homebuilding revolution. Figures published by the housing ministry showed construction began on 37,220 homes in England in the three months to June – 8% down on the same period a year ago, and the lowest quarterly number of new home starts since 2016. – Guardian
Ryanair has saved millions of pounds in compensation payouts after quitting an industry-wide arbitration body and leaving travellers with an uphill battle to obtain any redress, according to the consumer group Which? The budget airline cut ties with Aviation ADR, one of two schemes that airlines use to arbitrate serious complaints, at the end of November last year. In the first 11 months of 2018 before Ryanair left the scheme, Aviation ADR received more than 14,000 complaints involving the airline and told it to pay out more than £2.6m to passengers, plus an administration fee of £75 for each complaint. – Guardian
Metro Bank's crucial £350m fundraising “comes at a price” as it means the troubled lender is unlikely to return to profit until 2021, City analysts have warned. The bank, which is searching for a new chairman to replace founder Vernon Hill, successfully relaunched a bond issue this week that offered extremely high returns. - Telegraph
The energy regulator has warned companies it will not write “blank cheques” for green projects despite the need to boost decarbonisation to meet Britain’s climate targets. Ofgem said that helping to deliver net-zero emissions by 2050 was one of its top priorities and warned that “progress may be stalling” with emissions falling last year at their slowest since 2012. However, it said it was not prepared to authorise “unnecessary investment, and cost, in options that turn out to be dead ends”. – The Times
KPMG faces potential legal action from a tycoon who runs one of the largest oil companies in Moldova after it said 18 historical audit reports for companies set up to carry out exploration in Kazakhstan could not be relied upon. In a letter seen by The Times, KPMG notified lawyers representing the Republic of Kazakhstan in August that “reliance should not be placed” on audit reports it completed for the 2007, 2008 and 2009 financial years related to three oil and gas companies controlled by Anatolie Stati, chief executive of Ascom, the Moldovan oil and gas group. – The Times