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The man who made £13m from Southern Cross believes that ministers should let the care home business fail and says that board directors must share blame for the company's plight. In an interview with The Times, Philip Scott, who built the company into the biggest elderly care provider, also accused its new bosses of scaremongering. He said that directors, including Baroness Morgan of Huyton, the new head of Ofsted, who had been brought on to the board because she had been Tony Blair's policy chief, were partly responsible for the decline, reports the Times.Groupon, the phenomenally successful discount website that offers daily deals on pizzas, paintings and even plastic surgery, is seeking to raise up to $750 million in one of the year's most keenly anticipated initial public offerings. The timing of the float is designed to allow the Chicago-based company to take advantage of pent-up investor demand for technology companies, according to the Times.A second credit rating agency has threatened to put the US under review for a possible downgrade unless politicians put their squabbles aside and agree to raise the statutory debt limit. Moody's said the world's biggest economy's AAA-rating is under threat because the country will run out of money unless policymakers agree to increase the limit on the national debt above the current $14.3tn, reports the Telegraph.US lawmakers have raised fresh concerns that BP is not meeting its obligations to victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and criticised President Barack Obama for failing to take control. A new report by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee argues that the US government, not BP, should have been in charge of oil spill response and managing the compensation of victims, says the Telegraph.Betfred is expected to be declared the provisional winner of the Tote auction, a decision likely to prompt an angry reaction from the racing industry that had backed the bookmaker's rival, Sir Martin Broughton. The government is set to announce today that the bookmaker is their preferred bidder, according to people close to the process, although Whitehall insiders said no contracts had yet been signed, reports the Financial Times.Next generation mobile phones will disrupt digital television when they launch in 2013 unless the companies do something about it, the communications watchdog warned yesterday. Ofcom yesterday set out proposals to reduce interference between digital TV and 4G mobiles, saying it wanted to ensure the two services could function alongside each other, says the Independent.Lotus is planning to axe up to 99 jobs at its Norfolk car plant in Hethel. The news comes less than two months after the sports car manufacturer failed to secure a government loan to expand the site, reports the Independent.A long-term solution to the crises rippling through the 17-nation eurozone will require the creation of a central finance ministry with the power to exercise controls over national budgets, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, said on Thursday. Speaking in Aachen in Germany, Trichet urged closer European integration as the means of imposing discipline on countries which failed to keep their public finances in order, monitor economic reform and provide a common approach to dealing with Europe's financial sector, according to the Guardian.The British economy needs to get through the current 'soft patch' before interest rates are raised, a top Bank of England official has warned. Paul Fisher made it clear that consumption, or household spending, is too weak to consider raising rates from the current 0.5% despite the fact that inflation is running at more than twice the Bank of England's 2% target.The £96m take­over of Pinewood Shepperton by property group Peel Holdings is being probed by regulators. The Office of Fair Trading is looking into whether Peel's bid, which has been backed by the studio's board, will result in a "substantial lessening of competition". ---RG