Monday newspaper round-up: Asda, Ukraine, Bank levy

Asda will today brief senior management on the results of the review carried out on behalf of the company by consultants McKinsey to equip it for the changing retail landscape. The details of the recommendations, which some have described as a new five-year plan, have not been made public yet. However, they are thought to include "scores" of redundancies amongst its top ranks at its central and head office functions. As well, a step-up in the grocer´s multichannel offering and wider product ranges are thought to be in the pipeline, according to The Times. Nato and the White House fear that Moscow might be planning a wider invasion of Ukraine. That comes as overnight Russian forces stormed a base in Feodosia, the third such attack over the last 48 hours. A Ukrainian military spokesman in Crimea said that the Russian units involved had used a mix of helicopters, armoured personnel carriers and stun grenades, with shots having been fired, The Times reports. Britain´s largest lenders are set to obtain hundreds of millions of pounds worth in reductions in their tax bill after complaining that the bank levy had a disproportionate effect on domestic lenders. The Treasury is planning to change towards a band-based system whereby caps are placed on the taxes faced by individual banks. Barclays and HSBC alone may see their levy charges cut by a total of over £300m, The Daily Telegraph writes. RSA, the UK´s largest commercial insurer, will this week publish the prospectus for its much awaited rights issue, in effect pulling the trigger on the operation. The fund raising excercise is expected to yield £775m in fresh capital. The exact terms of the offer were still up in the air as bankers at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan Cazenove met over the weekend to finalise them. In a bid to ensure firm support from investors the offering is expected to be deeply discounted, perhaps by as much as 40% to 50%, The Times says. The reverberations from last week´s Budget continue to filter through even a week after the event. In a move that mirrors current arrangements by Google, Yahoo has shifted its tax base to Ireland. That may cost governments across Europe millions in lost taxes. The Chancellor unveiled a clamp down on corporate tax avoidance, amongst which are measures including forcing online music retailers to pay full VAT in the UK. The threat of a 'sales tax' on internet firms such as Google and Yahoo was also to be found in the Budget, The Daily Mail says. Troubled Co-op Bank needs a further injection of £400m after unearthing additional costs related to previous episodes of financial misconduct. Last year the lender already raised £1.1bn in fresh equity to butress its balance sheet. The full negative impact on its 2013 numbers is expected to amount to between £1.2bn and £1.3bn. As a result its capital position is expected to fall towards only 7.2% from about 9% at present, The Daily Telegraph says.AB