Monday newspaper round-up: High street, Carillion, Crossrail, WPP
Shoppers are deserting the high street in greater numbers than during the depths of the recession in 2009, creating a brutal climate that is putting thousands more retail jobs at risk. The coming days will be crucial to the future of a handful of household names, including Mothercare and Carpetright, which are trying to persuade investors to make vital cash injections so they can jettison unwanted stores. There is also the spectre of job losses at Poundworld, the struggling discount chain, which is being cut adrift by its American owners. - Guardian
Carillion used suppliers to “prop up a failing business model” and conceal true levels of debt, say MPs investigating the failed government contractor. The parliamentary inquiry into the collapse of a company that provided a host of vital public services, including catering in schools, prison maintenance and construction of new NHS hospitals will conclude on Wednesday with the publication of the MPs’ final report. It is expected to name and shame those responsible for the failure of the listed company, which had a UK staff of nearly 20,000 when it crashed into administration in January. – Guardian
Crossrail faces an estimated £500m funding black hole as the Government struggles to keep the country’s most ambitious rail project on track in its final stages. With a budget of nearly £15bn, it is already one of the country’s largest infrastructure projects. It is understood the final cost is due to rise further, however, as unexpected problems have forced unscheduled engineering. - Telegraph
President Donald Trump has waded into a row over Chinese telecoms equipment maker ZTE, promising to get the firm “back into business fast” after it was hit by a ban on buying American hardware and software. The company said it was halting all of its major business activities in the US last week after the country’s Department of Commerce issued a so-called denial order, prohibiting American exporters from doing business with it, but appeared to have been thrown a lifeline by Mr Trump yesterday. - Telegraph
The chairman of WPP is facing a shareholder backlash over the advertising company’s secretive ousting of Sir Martin Sorrell after a leading advisory group recommended that investors oppose his re-election at next month’s annual meeting. In a report to investors, Glass Lewis, the proxy shareholder service, suggested that they vote against the re-election of Roberto Quarta as chairman, as its concerns about WPP’s failure to “adequately prepare” for the replacement of Sir Martin as chief executive had been heightened by the “opaque nature” of the investigation into the executive’s conduct and his “good leaver” status. – The Times
One of the country’s biggest investment managers has warned that banks will be forced to raise mortgage rates as cheap money provided by a closed Bank of England scheme runs out. The £127 billion term funding scheme, which was closed in February, was launched in August 2016 to provide lenders with low-cost loans as an economic stimulus after the Brexit vote. M&G Investments believes that lenders will soon be forced to push up mortgage rates because of the higher costs. - The Times