The two leading power companies have quietly shifted ownership of their British operations into offshore companies to protect against Jeremy Corbyn’s threat of cut-price nationalisation, The Sunday Times can reveal. National Grid (NG.) and SSE (SSE), which together own Britain’s entire gas and electricity transmission spine, this weekend confirmed they had created overseas holding companies in recent months to seek shelter from Labour’s renationalisation agenda. SSE has put its UK business into a new Swiss holding company; National Grid has shifted its gas and electricity businesses into new subsidiaries in Luxembourg and Hong Kong. The moves are designed to build defences against Labour’s sweeping renationalisation plans.
Virgin Money Holdings (UK) (VM.) is preparing to take a hit of up to £450m from PPI mis-selling compensation that is likely to deepen its multimillion-pound losses — casting a shadow over its expansion plans. The lender, bought by (CYBG (CYBG)) last year, is expected to make a hefty final provision for the payment protection insurance debacle, which has cost the banking industry £50bn so far. Analysts forecast that PPI and other mis-selling charges, as well as restructuring expenses from CYBG’s £1.7bn acquisition, will drag the bank to a £250m loss for the year to the end of September. “They will be reporting a material loss courtesy of the PPI charge,” said Investec analyst Ian Gordon.
BT Group (BT.A) is in talks with Disney about bringing the American giant’s streaming platform to its television service. The telecoms company is trying to position its BT TV as a streaming “super aggregator”, where viewers can watch most on-demand platforms in one place. Disney plans to launch Disney+ in the UK at the end of March, with a library of films and TV shows including Star Wars, Marvel and various Disney classics. Broadcasters and tech giants have been racing to launch subscription streaming services as they try to rival Netflix. BT decided against following Sky and investing in drama, opting instead to keep ploughing money into sports TV rights.
The outsourcing giant Mitie Group (MTO) is suing the Ministry of Justice over what it claims was a botched contract tender to clean and repair courts and tribunal buildings. The £2.2bn turnover company has lodged a High Court claim over the contract, which it lost last month to French rival Engie. Mitie says the government took an “unfair and unequal” approach to scoring the tender, and awarded scores that were “manifestly wrong”. Since 2012, Mitie has carried out facilities management at courts in the south of England, including maintenance, security and cleaning. Court documents show it hopes to claim more than £200,000 in damages from the government, and is demanding that Engie is stripped of the contract.
London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) is set to get the green light from shareholders on Tuesday for its blockbuster £22bn deal to acquire data terminal provider Refinitiv. The Exchange group is expected to garner more than 50% of votes in favour of the takeover of Refinitiv, which is backed by private equity firm Blackstone and media giant Thomson Reuters. The vote comes after Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) last month dropped its surprise £32bn bid for the LSE, which sparked a battle between bankers acting for the two exchanges. LSE branded Hong Kong’s offer “fundamentally flawed”.
