Vodafone Share News (VOD)

Vodafone is the worst mobile phone network in the country, despite the £1 billion it spent to improve its performance, according to the largest survey of the nation's signal quality. The Newbury-based company and the only British-owned mobile phone network operating in the country was bottom of the league in terms of overall performance, according to RootMetrics, a testing company. - The TimesPaul Robson, a former trader at Rabobank, has become the first Briton to plead guilty to being part of the worldwide conspiracy to rig the Libor interest benchmark. The executive, who worked at the Dutch bank's London office, admitted before a New York court to one count of bank fraud and wire fraud, as part of a conspiracy that also involved the taxpayer-backed Lloyds Banking Group. - The TelegraphThe gloom engulfing the grocery sector intensified as investors gambled on conditions worsening at some of the Big Four grocers. Fears incoming Tesco boss Dave Lewis will launch further price cuts and slash the dividend has prompted hedge funds to bet on a fall in grocers' share prices, data shows. Financial data group Markit shows Sainsbury's is the second most shorted stock of Britain's 350 largest quoted firms. - The Daily MailPoliticians and a small business group have joined calls for a full investigation of government-backed loans to small and medium-sized businesses in response to fresh allegations of mis-selling and abuse by high street banks. MPs said that an audit of the Enterprise Finance Guarantee was needed to investigate claims, revealed yesterday by The Times, that taxpayer-funded guarantees were wrongfully secured in order to remove companies' overdrafts. - The TimesIneos, the company at the centre of last year's bitter dispute with unions at its Grangemouth petrochemical plant, has bought the rights to explore fracking for shale gas in a 127 square mile area around Grangemouth and the Firth of Forth. The company, which is controlled by publicity-shy Switzerland-based multimillionaire Jim Ratcliffe, said on Monday it had bought 51% of the rights to fracking licence PEDL 133, which covers the Midland Valley of Scotland. - The GuardianThe UK is recovering its mantle as a global manufacturing hub and is now one of the cheapest locations to produce goods in Western Europe, according to a ringing endorsement from one of the world's leading consultancy groups. Direct manufacturing costs in the UK have improved by up to 10 percentage points compared to other Western European countries thanks to stable wages and improved productivity over the past decade. - The TelegraphWomen bosses are still earning only three-quarters as much as their male colleagues, meaning they would have to work until they were nearly 80 to catch up with men's lifetime earnings, according to new figures. More than 40 years after the Equal Pay Act outlawed less favourable pay and conditions in the workplace, the data shows that discrepancies in salaries widen at the higher echelons of management, with a "midlife pay crisis" particularly hitting female managers aged over 40, who earn 35% less than men. - The GuardianThe Australian owner of Clydesdale Bank has made its strongest intervention yet in the independence debate, warning that a Yes vote could bring with it a "significant" rise in costs. The alert, from National Australia Bank (NAB), came as the group also said that Clydesdale faces an additional hit of at least £245 million to cover the cost of mis-sold loan insurance and complex interest rate swap products. - The ScotsmanBC