Monday newspaper round-up: Royal Bank of Scotland, China, Prudential

Santander has moved into pole position to take over the 320 branches in England being sold by Royal Bank of Scotland.A large corporate buyer with existing UK interests such as the Spanish bank would frustrate attempts to inject fresh competition into British banking. The sale memorandum went out last week, but it emerged over the weekend that any buyer would have to find an extra £3bn as well as the mooted price of £1bn, the Times reports. China's central bank chief laid the groundwork for an appreciation of the renminbi at the weekend when he described the current dollar peg as temporary, striking a more emollient tone after months of tough opposition in Beijing to a shift in exchange rate policy. Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, gave the strongest hint yet from a senior official that China would abandon the unofficial dollar peg, in place since mid-2008. He said it was a "special" policy to weather the financial crisis, the FT reports.Top institutional investors are threatening a revolt against Tidjane Thiam, chief executive of Prudential, after being excluded from sub-underwriting the insurer's $20bn (£14bn) rights issue. Shareholders are furious that they have not been offered a role in sub-underwriting the record-breaking deal and that the job and the lucrative fees have been given to a group of 30 banks instead. Sub-underwriting fees are expected to run to hundreds of millions of dollars, the Telegraph reports.Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina have underlined their desire to be big players in Australia's coal-bed methane gas sector after making a joint offer thought to be worth at least A$3.7bn (US$3.4bn) for Arrow Energy. Arrow announced on Monday it had received an indicative proposal from a vehicle jointly owned by the oil companies worth A$4.45 a share in cash or A$3.3bn, the FT reports.BT is demanding that Virgin Media opens its network of underground pipes to rivals. The telecoms group wants to use Virgin's network as part of its plans to upgrade its infrastructure and will put pressure on Ofcom to allow it access. BT intends to connect five million people to its superfast broadband network by spring next year, the Times reports.The boss of Virgin Trains has called on the Government to embrace new financing techniques to address a looming capacity shortage on the railways. Tony Collins said the Department for Transport must think beyond its traditional reliance on only two forms of financing - the taxpayer and the farebox. Pointing out that passenger volumes had doubled in just over a decade, Mr Collins said: "The railways have got to a point where we are starting to run out of capacity," reports the Telegraph.Foxtons, the estate agents, has finally revealed a £218m loss in its latest accounts filing, after struggling under a mountain of debt created by its private equity buy-out in May 2007. The property company was owned by private equity firm BC Partners, but its lenders took control of the company in January in a restructuring of its debt. In a regulatory filing to Companies House, documents reveal that Foxtons Holdings Ltd made a £218m pre-tax loss for the year to the end of December 2008, the Telegraph reports.Staff of the John Lewis Partnership are expected to share a £140m bonus pot this week as the retailer reveals strong full-year results boosted by its Waitrose supermarkets. About 70,000 employees are tipped to receive bonuses worth 14% of salary, up from 13% last year, the Times reports.Lloyds Banking Group will say today that it is to breathe new life into the owner of De Vere hotels, the group behind The Grand in Brighton and Cameron House on Loch Lomond, which has been under pressure to renegotiate bank loans. De Vere, part of the Alternative Hotel Group, was among a disastrous portfolio of investments put together by Peter Cummings, the disgraced former head of corporate lending at the Bank of Scotland, which Lloyds bought amid the banking crisis, the Times reports.British diplomats will today begin the final stage of a desperate rearguard action against new European legislation that London-based hedge funds and private equity firms warn could drive them out of business.While Britain has been fighting for some time for a significant watering down of the reforms proposed by the Alternative Investment Fund Management (AIFM) directive, time is running out to secure concessions on behalf of the City, where much of Europe's hedge fund and private equity sector is based, the Independent reports.The clothing brand George at Asda today became the first retailer to offer customers a 100-day returns policy across its entire range, as it attempts to turn the screws on rivals Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Primark, the Independent reports.The Essar Group, one of India's biggest conglomerates, is considering raising up to $3bn (£1.99bn) from listing its oil and power assets on the London Stock Exchange in what would be the country's biggest overseas listing. The deal, which would value Essar's energy businesses at $12bn, is one of the strongest options to finance an $8bn-$9bn expansion plan that would strengthen the group's position in the top ranks of India's oil refining and electric power generation sectors, the FT reports.