A-Z of the Sunday newspapers

THIS Is Money reads the Sunday papers so you don't have to. Here is this week's run-down of who is making the headlines on the City pages:

The Business

Britain's worst funds
FUNDS run by some of the biggest and most prestigious names in British finance, including Abbey National, Schroders and Prudential, have lost £2.4bn of investors' money during the past three years. All of the UK's 10 worst-performing big funds were invested exclusively in the British stock market.

House prices
BRITAIN's runaway housing boom is finally coming to an end, with a drop in price inflation and buyer enquiries in June, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) will warn on Tuesday.

Independent on Sunday

Hollinger
LORD Black of Crossharbour paid back $30m (£16m) of unauthorised payments yesterday to Hollinger international, the US publisher where he was recently chief executive.

Observer

Cable mega-merger
SHAREHOLDERS are urging NTL and Telewest to initiate merger talks this autumn to create a company with a market value of $7bn (£3.9bn). If negotiations are successful, the combined group would have more than 1.5m customers.

Myners on M&S
PAUL Myners, chairman of Marks & Spencer, which last week saw off a takeover threat from Bhs billionaire Philip Green, believes the result was a 'victory for popular capitalism' and for small M&S shareholders.

Camelot
CAMELOT, the consortium that runs the National Lottery, saw sales jump £63m in the first quarter of the current year, according to figures to be released this week. The near 6% increase over last year sets the seal on the longest period of growth since 1997.

Sunday Telegraph

Virgin float
VIRGIN Mobile's plans for a £900m flotation were hanging by a thread after it was revealed that Sir Richard Branson, the head of Virgin Group, is unlikely to proceed with the listing unless investors endorse his valuation of the company.

J Sainsbury
A SWIFT cull of J Sainsbury's non-executives is to be made by Philip Hampton, the former finance director of Lloyds TSB who takes over as chairman of the struggling supermarket group.

Sunday Times

M&S woos Blank
SIR Victor Blank, one of the City‘s highest-profile businessmen, has been approached to be chairman of Marks & Spencer following the rejection of Philip Green's £12.5bn bid for the company.

Capital-Egg
AMERICA's sixth-largest bank credit-card company, Capital One, is just days away from clinching an agreed £1.4bn takeover of Egg, the online bank.

Tesco-China
TESCO became the first British supermarket group to enter China yesterday, in a £140m deal that could transform the company into the world's biggest grocer.

More useful links

The Financial Mail on Sunday's Midas
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