BT will this week be given the green light to make a double-digit rate of return on a £12 billion investment in full-fibre broadband, in a key verdict by the telecoms watchdog. Ofcom is poised to say on Thursday that the former state monopoly’s Openreach division will be able to make a “fair” return on its work to connect 20 million homes to super-fast internet. – Sunday Times
Steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta and financier Lex Greensill exploited a Covid-19 state guarantee scheme for struggling companies to extract £400 million of taxpayer-backed loans – eight times the limit. Gupta used the Australian banker Greensill to borrow so much using the government’s coronavirus large business interruption loan scheme (CLBILS) that the borrowing spree is understood to have sparked alarm in the Treasury. – Sunday Times
More than 17,500 chain store outlets disappeared from high streets, shopping centres and retail parks across Great Britain last year as the Covid-19 pandemic spurred the worst decline on record. An average of 48 shops, restaurants and other leisure and hospitality venues closed permanently every day across England, Wales and Scotland, and only 21 opened, according to the figures compiled by the Local Data Company (LDC), a research provider, for the accountancy firm PwC. – Guardian
Virgin Atlantic is finalising a fresh £160 million support package from shareholders and creditors as the airline scrambles to secure its post-pandemic future. The latest package comes six months after a £1.2 billion rescue deal was completed following failed talks about a government bailout. Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group owns 51 per cent of the airline, with the rest owned by US carrier Delta Air Lines. – Sunday Times
The founder of Confused.com has hired a City heavyweight to chair her tracking business as it considers a £500million London float. Buddi, the brainchild of the price comparison site’s founder, Sara Murray, has hired former KPMG UK chairman Simon Collins. Murray said Collins, who is also a non-executive director of the Royal Air Force, was ‘measured, thoughtful and bright’, adding: ‘His appointment is a building block to being a bigger company.’ – Financial Mail on Sunday
Philip Jansen, the chief executive of BT, is under more pressure as a union threatens to hit the company with its first strike in more than three decades. The Communication Workers Union will ballot its 45,000 members in the coming weeks about industrial action following a protracted dispute with management over layoffs and site closures. – Sunday Telegraph
Ireland on Sunday temporarily suspended the rollout of the AstraZeneca coronavirus jab, after Norway reported that one person had died and three been admitted to hospital after receiving the shot. “The administration of COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca is temporarily deferred from this morning,” a spokesperson from the health ministry told the Daily Telegraph, a few hours after the country’s National Immunisation Advisory Committee (Niac) recommended a pause in the campaign. – Sunday Telegraph
