Banco Santander Share News (BNC)

(ShareCast News) - AB Inbev could table a £70bn bid for SAB Miller this week, firing the starting gun on the biggest-ever takeover of a British company. Over recent days the world's two biggest brewers have begun "friendly" talks, sources said. The discussions continued into yesterday, with Budweiser owner AB InBev expected to make a firm opening offer within days - possibly tomorrow morning.London-listed SAB, the maker of Peroni and Grolsch, is understood to be playing hardball with its Belgian rival over price, but is not unreceptive to a deal. - The Sunday TimesTesco is close to ditching the sale of Dunnhumby, the company behind the Clubcard, but is ready to go ahead with the £3bn sale of its central and east European operations. Senior City sources said yesterday that the advertising agency WPP, the last serious bidder for Dunnhumby, was struggling to agree a price. The sale has stuttered since it was launched earlier in the year. Buyers have raised concerns about Tesco's contract with Dunnhumby, which is up for review in 2020. - The Sunday TimesEmbattled supermarket retailer Wm Morrison is in a legal row with a clutch of property developers over a string of supermarket sites that it has pulled out of building. Sources say that there are currently a number of ongoing court proceedings that could decide multi-million pound payouts in favour of a number of developers. - The Sunday TelegraphSantander is considering re-entering the investment advice market, several years after abandoning much of the sector in the face of tighter regulations at the end of 2012. The Spanish-owned lender joined much of the high street banking sector in chopping back its investment advice service for the majority of customers when regulations changed the way investors paid for advice, and rules came in requiring expensive extra training for staff. - The Sunday TelegraphAn Indian billionaire and two of the City's most powerful institutions can be revealed as the driving forces behind a growing shareholder rebellion at Debenhams. The struggling department store's three biggest investors - Schroders, Milestone Resources and Old Mutual - are pushing for a board shake-up with help from the broker Cenkos. Milestone is a holding company for Mukesh "Micky" Jagtiani, an Indian-born former London taxi driver who runs a sprawling retail empire from Dubai. Together the three investors own about 25% of Debenhams. - The Sunday TimesOne of Britain's biggest housebuilders has hired a roster of heavyweight advisers as it prepares to launch a £1bn stock market float. Countryside Properties, which was bought out of Lloyds bank by the American private equity firm Oaktree Capital two years ago, has drafted in investment bankers from HSBC, JP Morgan, Numis and Barclays to plan a listing early next year. - The Sunday TimesSmall businesses could get a serious boost from peer-to-peer lenders and crowdfunding platforms, providing an alternative source of credit to the big banks, according to a study from the Centre for Economics and Business Research and payments firm Fiserv. Alternative finance to businesses is projected to hit £12.3bn in 2020, up 10-times from the £1.2bn loaned out in 2014. Although the rate of growth sounds extraordinarily fast, the market has already grown from just £90m in 2011. - The Sunday Telegraph