Lloyds Banking Group, which is now 43% owned by the taxpayer, is reported to be considering a sale of its pensions and insurance business Scottish Widows. The group's new chief executive, Antonio Horta-Osorio, is said to be poised to offload the subsidiary, possibly together with the bank's 60 per cent stake in the wealth manager St James's Place, says the Independent.HSBC is to close down its retail operations in Russia, making it the second foreign bank to leave the state-dominated sector in as many months. The decision by HSBC, on the back of a similar plan at Barclays, comes as both rethink their global strategy to cut back on operations that are a drag on group profitability, according to the Financial Times.Barclays will be targeted during its annual meeting on Wednesday by anti-poverty campaigners accusing it of playing a leading role in driving up food prices on global commodities markets. Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of the high street bank, is the UK's biggest player in food commodity trading, and one of the top three banking players globally, according to a new analysis for the World Development Movement, reports the Guardian.Santander's takeover of 318 Royal Bank of Scotland branches is not expected to be completed until the first quarter of 2012 despite hopes the deal would be done by the end of this year. The integration is one of the most complex yet undertaken as it involves branches being spun out of RBS, which was forced to sell off the outlets by the EU as the price for its £54bn taxpayer bailout, rather than a traditional takeover, says the Guardian.The Bribery Act could unfairly prejudice British companies after key aspects of it were watered down by the Ministry of Justice, according to former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith. Lord Goldsmith, now European chair of litigation at law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, warned that guidance on the Bribery Act could make it difficult for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to prosecute foreign companies, potentially handing them an advantage over their UK competitors, reports the Daily Telegraph.Chancellor George Osborne and his Labour shadow, Ed Balls, face a crucial test of their respective claims to economic credibility tomorrow when the preliminary estimate for economic growth in the first quarter of this year is published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Although the Government concedes that the economy faces a "choppy" recovery and that the recent performance has been disappointing, even allowing for the bad weather last winter, it will be hoping that its policies have indeed restored confidence to the battered economy, the Independent reports. BP has been handed a much-needed boost by a key report into last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill, ahead of first quarter results predicted to show that it has fallen further behind Shell. Just days after the first anniversary of the fatal explosion on board its Deepwater Horizon rig, analysts expect the supermajor to report a 0.8pc decline in underlying profit to £3.4bn, according to the Daily Mail.Bankers and other City workers are still enjoying bumper pay packets as rising salaries offset falling bonuses. Bonus payouts fell 8%, or down from £7.3bn to £6.7bn for the financial year to April, according to specialist consultant the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr). But the organisation estimates average regular pay for City workers in the first quarter of this year was up 7% compared with a year ago, much higher than the 2% growth for the UK as a whole, reports the Daily Express.Nintendo has deepened the gloom enveloping corporate Japan after profits hit a seven-year low because of stiff competition in the video games console market and a post-earthquake slide in consumer confidence. The electronics company plans to introduce an updated second generation version of its best selling Wii console next year to provide stronger competition against Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360, says the Daily Telegraph.
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