Monday newspaper round-up: Barclays, BRC, Sensex

The European Banking Authority has estimated that Barclays will have €4bn (£3.3bn) of "deferred tax assets" this year, compared with €5bn at Royal Bank of Scotland, and €7.3bn at Lloyds Banking Group. Deferred tax assets are highly prized by companies because they can be set against tax claims to reduce the final bill. They are usually created when a company makes a loss and can be held for several years to offset against future profits. However, while RBS and Lloyds made enormous losses in the crisis, Barclays always declared a profit at group level. Last year, Barclays generated an extra £591m in "tax losses carried forward" despite making £6bn of profits before tax. The tax gain suggests the bank made £2bn of losses, which the bank said "mainly relates to entities in the USA, the UK and Spain". However, a spokesman declined to comment on where the losses were sustained or whether the loss-making entities had been closed, The Telegraph reports.Landlords and suppliers of La Senza will be wiped out when the company is put into administration this week because the retailer's private equity owner has first claim on any assets. Lion Capital, which paid the Dragons' Den presenter Theo Paphitis £100m for the lingerie company in 2006, is in the highly unusual position of owning all La Senza's debt as well as its shares. The Times has learnt that Lion raised substantially the interest rate on the debt after buying out lenders, including Royal Bank of Scotland. The interest bill, which has been piling up since January 2010, will become due when the company enters administration. All La Senza's assets are expected to be eaten up by the loan repayments to its owner, leaving nothing for the landlords of its 158 stores, its suppliers or the taxman.Disgruntled American investors in Lloyds Banking Group are set to sue the bank as well as former directors Sir Victor Blank and Eric Daniels over its takeover of HBOS. Claim forms for a class action have been filed with the Southern District of New York again Lloyds, former chairman Blank and former chief executive Daniels that accuse them of making misleading statements about the deal, as analysts predict the group will face losses approaching £60bn over the next two years. The losses are mainly related to HBOS, which the claimants say was "insolvent" before the deal was completed. (...) The legal claim notes that Daniels described the tie-up with HBOS as "fantastic" and said the merged entity would have a "robust capital position". It adds that "unbeknownst to the public... beginning on October 1, 2008 HBOS was insolvent", according to the Scotsman.Germany's solar energy crown has slipped and China ? with its reputation for industrial pollution, unsafe mining and general environmental disregard ? has assumed it. The latest figures from Berlin show the Chinese capturing an ever-greater share of the German market, just when the country needs all the sustainable energy it can generate after the nuclear shutdown that followed the Fukushima disaster. The reason for the change is simple. Chinese solar panels cost, on average, a third less than their German equivalents. Chinese companies such as Suntech dominate the photovoltaic market. The Chinese generate close to half of global sales and almost 60% of profits in the industry, according to the consultancy PRTM, says The Times.India is to open its stock market to individual foreign investors for the first time, after a year in which the main Sensex index that tracks the Mumbai market suffered a 25% plunge. The Indian Government said yesterday that it had made the move "to widen the class of investors, attract more foreign funds, reduce market volatility and to deepen the Indian capital market". It said that the reforms would be put into operation by January 15. Until now foreign investors have been allowed to invest in Mumbai-listed equities only through mutual funds or via institutional schemes, The Times reports.Virgin Money completed its acquisition of bailed-out lender Northern Rock yesterday, despite calls for the sale to be delayed while the national auditor investigates whether the deal is good value for money. The coalition government agreed in November to sell Northern Rock to Virgin Money - the banking business owned by billionaire Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group - for between £747m and £1 bn. Critics say the deal fails to recoup all the £1.4bn spent by the government to keep the bank afloat during the credit crisis. The Labour Party wanted the deal to be put on hold while the National Audit Office investigates the sale. (...) UK Financial Investments, which manages the government's stake in banks including Northern Rock, said the deal had been cleared by the Financial Services Authority and the European Commission, The Scotsman says.After the collapse of Barratts Priceless, the shoe chain, Hawkin's Bazaar, the toy shop and D2 Jeans last week, a clutch of other names are expected to go to the wall, said Stephen Robertson, the director general of the British Retail Consortium, according to The Telegraph. He said that conditions were worse than at the end of 2008, a period acknowledged to be the worst in a generation for the high street and which saw the collapse of Woolworths, Zavvi and MFI: "This feels, talking to retailers, that there is more pressure than there was back in 2008. Back then there had been a relatively good run up until that point, and sales were certainly down, but margins were holding up. (...) This time, it's not just about the poor sales performance it's about the underlying profitability. We have seen a blizzard of deals and promotions, so gross profit margins will have been punished."AB