Monday newspaper round-up: Consumer slowdown, retail squeeze, Pru, SMEs
Businesses and investors are braced for a spending slowdown as those who have kept up a shopping spree in the last year run out of “borrowed time and borrowed money”. Households have continued to spend since the Brexit vote, helping drive up sales among retailers and supermarkets already benefiting from a windfall created by the devaluation of the pound. - Telegraph
Confidence among British businesses has fallen sharply amid mounting concerns about the domestic political backdrop and evidence that a weaker pound has failed to deliver a significant boost to exports. Although British companies reported their best profits in five years in the second quarter, there are growing concerns that the domestic economy has slowed markedly, sparking a succession of profit warnings. - The Times
British retailers missed out on a sunshine boost last month as shoppers shunned the high street during heavy storms and rain. Shopper footfall dipped by 1.1pc in July, according to figures by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Springboard. - Telegraph
Theresa May is facing claims by senior Whitehall officials that Brexit decisions are being “rushed through” in chaotic fashion over the summer. The prime minister will return from holiday today to increasing concern among civil servants and ministers that senior mandarins are railroading through decisions when many politicians are absent from Westminster. - The Times
Legal & General has expressed an interest in bidding for a £10 billion tranche of Prudential’s annuity portfolio. For Prudential, the nation’s biggest insurer, the news is likely to fuel speculation of a break-up following its announcement last week of a major review of operations that will result in the merger of its UK insurance operation with the fund manager M&G. - The Times
The Japanese economy has recorded its longest economic expansion in more than a decade after official data showed that it grew at 1% in the last quarter. Recording its sixth straight quarter of growth, the economy blew past market expectations with a 0.6% rise in the April-June period, according to figures from the cabinet office on Monday. - Guardian
A campaign to boost competition in small business lending helped only 230 companies in its first nine months. The scheme, which obliges nine of the UK’s biggest banks to refer companies rejected for loans to alternative lenders, resulted in less than £4 million of finance being provided. - The Times
British Gas’s price rise propelled energy switching to its highest ever rate on one of the country’s biggest comparison sites. The decision this month by Britain’s biggest energy supplier to raise electricity bills by 12.5pc triggered a two-and-a-half-times increase in switching on comparethemarket.com compared with the same day of the prior week. - Telegraph
Liam Fox faces embarrassment after New Zealand formally objected to a plan that would limit the amount of its lamb sold in Britain. New Zealand was one of the first countries to offer to enter trade negotiations after the EU referendum. - The Times
Travellers booking package holidays online are to receive greater protection if a holiday company goes bust, under government proposals to strengthen rules. The government said enhanced regulations, due to take effect in July 2018, would better protect an extra 10m UK package holidays booked over the internet. - Guardian
Negative interest rates will be needed in the next major recession or financial crisis, and central banks should do more to prepare the ground for such policies, according to leading economist Kenneth Rogoff. Quantitative easing is not as effective a tonic as cutting rates to below zero, he believes. Central banks around the world turned to money creation in the credit crunch to stimulate the economy when interest rates were already at rock bottom. - Telegraph
The key nuclear power players have been called in by the Government for crunch talks on plans to meet Britain’s energy demands with new small reactor technology, amid mounting fears over delays and Whitehall paralysis. Industry giants including NuScale, Rolls-Royce, Hitachi and Westinghouse have been summoned by ministers in a bid to reignite interest in the project. They have been asked to present their plans in meetings over the next few weeks. - Telegraph
One in six care home companies is in danger of insolvency, according to a report warning that successive rises in the living wage have driven up costs to the point where they may bankrupt a large part of the system. About 420,000 people over the age of 65 are being looked after in Britain’s 11,000 residential care homes, including 220,000 of the most vulnerable patients, who are in 4,700 nursing homes. - The Times
Measures to reform Libor could make it even more profitable for traders to rig borrowing rates, academics have warned. Experts on both sides of the Atlantic have concluded that moves to fix Libor against market transactions rather than basing it on individual banks’ assessment of their borrowing costs could make a flawed process even worse. - The Times
Seven people have been arrested as part of a Serious Fraud Office investigation into the collapse of an Anglo-Iranian commodities trader connected to Lord Lamont of Lerwick, the government’s trade envoy to Iran. The arrests were made alongside searches on five premises in London and the southeast, the SFO said. - The Times
Martin Schulz, the main challenger to Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany’s September election, has accused the country’s car industry executives of putting the sector at risk by failing to plan for the future. The future of the automotive sector, Germany’s biggest exporter and provider of about 800,000 jobs, has become a hot election issue as politicians blame executives and each other for the industry’s battered reputation following the emissions scandal. - Guardian
The numbers of online shops hit by serious losses of customer data has doubled in the past year as hackers try to plunder retails sites for valuable personal details, a law firm has warned. Customers are increasingly at risk as retailers amass ever growing collections of their shoppers’ personal information, with online shopping, digital marketing and loyalty schemes meaning shoppers are submitting more and more information to retailers that is of value to cyber criminals. - Telegraph
A venture attempting to extract lithium, a vital component for electric car batteries, from a swathe of land across Cornwall has completed its first cash raising and brought in outside investors from the mining industry. Cornish Lithium was created in May 2016 by Jeremy Wrathall, the chief executive, and his wife, Louise, a geologist. - The Times
The rise of electric cars will be a pyrrhic victory for the environment if they are powered by fossil fuels instead of renewables, according to the UK boss of the world’s biggest offshore windfarm developer. Matthew Wright, the new managing director of Dong Energy UK, said the cost of windfarms at sea had fallen so much that the big issue facing the industry was no longer levels of subsidies but how they integrated with the National Grid and emerging technologies. - Guardian
As City airport requires a steep descent, has a short runway and is surrounded by water it has been constrained to take smaller regional aircraft whose range is typically to other major western European cities. It’s also why the Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier decided to design a plane for such constricted inner-city airports: a commercial jet that acts like a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 but unlike those planes can actually take off and land at the likes of London City. - The Times
Coming to a television set near you: Farage the movie. A major Hollywood studio is poised to sign a deal with Nigel Farage and Arron Banks to make a £60million, six-part film of Mr Banks’ best-selling diary of the referendum campaign “The Bad Boys of Brexit”. The script is nearly finished and shooting will start in the New Year. The series will air in April, once the deal is signed next month at a meeting in Los Angeles. - Telegraph