BP Share News (BP.)

Vodafone will pay a £2bn special dividend next year after its patience in hanging on to a minority stake in America's biggest mobile network paid off. The British company, which owns a 45 per cent stake in Verizon Wireless, will receive £2.8bn in dividend payments after Verizon Communications, the majority owner, agreed at a board meeting to resume payouts to the parent companies, the Times reports.A chorus of global banks has warned that Washington risks triggering a global slump and may suffer permanent loss of credibility by flirting with default on America's $14.3trn (£8.8trn) federal debt. The dangers are almost as great if the US fails to lift the debt ceiling and avoids default by enacting the most drastic fiscal squeeze in modern history. "Default would be an act of collective insanity," said Willem Buiter, Cititgroup's chief economist, according to the Daily Telegraph.The role of Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP's chairman, whose position came under fire last year in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico spill, is under scrutiny again amid investor dissatisfaction over the oil group's lack of clarity on its strategic direction. Several top-15 shareholders have warned that they want to see evidence of momentum by the UK oil group in the next few months in the wake of Tuesday's disappointing earnings, the Financial Times reports.The public is so cynical about energy suppliers that it will dismiss any investigation into soaring prices as a "stitch-up", the head of British Gas's parent company said yesterday. With the possibility of a Competition Commission inquiry looming, the Centrica chief executive Sam Laidlaw told The Times that distrust of the industry was so entrenched that no sudden "Damascene moment" would convince consumers that rising bills were fair.Oberthur is in the final stages of an auction to sell large chunks of its business to private equity bidders, in a move that analysts said would provide the French group with fire power to eventually relaunch a bid for troubled UK banknote printer De La Rue. US financial investors Advent International and One Equity Partners are the two remaining contenders vying for a 60 per cent stake in Oberthur's smart card business in a deal that could be worth up to €600m ($855m), several people close to the situation said, according to the Financial Times.Williams-Sonoma, the upmarket US home furnishings and gourmet cookware chain, is plotting to launch in the UK next year, despite the dire turbulent conditions on the high street. The US retail group, which has 560 retail stores in the US and Canada, has appointed a UK retail property agent in the past week and plans to open its first store in the first half of next year, the Independent reports.The Government's much-vaunted Big Society bank launches with the name Big Society Capital today under the chairmanship of Sir Ronald Cohen, a pioneer of the UK venture capital industry. In its first transaction, the £600m fund has invested £1m in Private Equity Foundation, an organisation helping disadvantaged teenagers find jobs when they leave school, according to the Independent.Nick Leslau, one of Britain's wealthiest property entrepreneurs, has just embarked on the grandest undertaking of his career: he has snapped up the historic St Katharine Docks near the Tower of London for £156m.The son of a jeweller who grew up in Cricklewood in north London and says he has recently become "besotted" with reading books about the capital in medieval times, Leslau wants to refurbish the buildings around the 200-berth marina and hopes to entice City banks to the waterfront, the Guardian reports.George Osborne was handed a much-needed boost yesterday as Britain was deemed a safer place to invest than the United States. In a rare event on the financial markets, it became cheaper for the UK government than for the American administration to borrow money from international lenders, the Daily Mail reports.---RG