Bloomsbury Share News (BMY)

Lloyds Banking Group is weighing up several alternatives to joining the government's asset protection scheme (APS), which may include a rights issue as well as the sale of Scottish Widows, says the FT.Tony Ball has become an unlikely frontrunner for the chief executive's job at ITV, as doubts emerge about the suitability of his principal remaining rival, Apple's Pascal Cagni, writes the Times.Main shareholders in National Express have indicated they will not back a revised all-cash 450p takeover offer from the train and bus operator's largest investor, and will continue to back the management's alternative plans for a rights issue, reports the FT.Protesters attacked Diageo's plans to axe 900 whisky jobs after the drinks giant's reporting of a £2.02bn profit yesterday, according to the Independent.Bankers, industrialists and London's mayor have fiercely rejected Lord Turner's argument that Britain's "swollen" banking industry was destabilising the economy and needed to be cut down to size, says the FT.The Times adds that Boris Johnson described proposals for a tax on City trading as "crackers" yesterday as critics lined up to attack the idea floated by Lord Turner.James Davis, the chief financial officer at the Stanford Financial Group, on Thursday pleaded guilty to charges that he helped Sir Allen Stanford, the company's billionaire founder, in an alleged $7bn Ponzi scheme, reports the FT.Bloomsbury, which published the Harry Potter series, hopes that celebrity chefs and the Ashes can conjure up some magic in the second half, after profits plunged 66 per cent in the six months to June, writes the Independent.The sharpest fall in business investment in 44 years shocked economists yesterday who said it increased the risk that figures released today will show the economy shrank by more in the second quarter than the 0.8pc initially thought, reports the Telegraph.Three former managers at Dresdner Kleinwort, including the head of M&A in the UK, have become the latest to sue the investment bank to recover unpaid bonuses and severance pay worth €11m (£9.7m), according to the Independent.The void on the UK's high streets left by the collapse of Woolworths has been predominantly filled by pound stores and discount retailers, in a stark indication of how the credit crisis has reshaped the retail industry, says the Telegraph.