Wednesday newspaper round-up: Ladbrokes, Interserve, Snapchat, Apple
Bookmaker Ladbrokes Coral is telling shop staff to sign up as many gamblers as possible to online accounts if they want to avoid being among 5,000 employees it plans to make redundant, the Guardian has learned. According to letters circulated among employees – and seen by the Guardian – the bookmaker will close up to 1,000 of its 3,500 shops over the next 18 to 24 months, blaming imminent curbs on £100-per-spin fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs). – Guardian
The government has raised objections to a rescue plan designed to stave off a Carillion-style collapse at Interserve, the contractor whose public sector contracts include hospital cleaning and serving school meals. Lenders to the company, which employs 45,000 people in the UK, are trying to thrash out the terms of a plan under which they would agree to cancel nearly half of the company’s £807m net debt for shares in the company and effectively take control of it. - Guardian
Snapchat has finally stemmed months of shrinking user numbers, surprising detractors who feared that it had entered a death spiral. The teen-friendly photo-sharing app lost five million users between March and September last year, but its latest financial results showed that its audience had stabilised at 186m daily users. – Telegraph
Apple’s retail chief Angela Ahrendts is leaving after five years at the technology giant. The former Burberry chief executive, who has been one of Apple’s most high profile executives since her appointment in 2014, will depart in April. – Telegraph
Britain will avoid recession in a no-deal Brexit as the government launches a £40 billion emergency stimulus package and the Bank of England ignores surging inflation to keep interest rates on hold, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. The think tank said policymakers would respond to a no deal with tax cuts and welfare spending amounting to around 2 per cent of GDP, blowing a fresh hole in the budget deficit. Even if no action is taken recession will be averted, although the economy will stagnate with growth just above zero for two years. – The Times
Barclays is bracing for a showdown with Edward Bramson at its annual shareholder meeting after the activist investor made a formal bid to secure a seat on the bank’s board. Sherborne Investors, Mr Bramson’s firm, which holds a 5.5 per cent stake in Barclays, was rebuffed last year when it made an informal attempt to gain board representation in private talks with the bank. – The Times