Sunday newspaper round-up: BP, HMV, Portugal

Tony Hayward's position on the board of BP's Russian joint venture TNK-BP is in jeopardy, amid concerns at the top of the oil giant about his growing dislocation from the company. The Sunday Telegraph understands the board of BP, led by chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, is likely to consider replacing Mr Hayward as a non-executive director at the earliest possible opportunity. HMV faces a shareholder boycott if it launches a rescue rights issue to plug a gaping hole its balance sheet. The struggling music and book retailer last week issued its third profit warning since January, heightening concern about its prospects. Without a capital injection from investors, HMV must rely on raising cash via asset sales, as well as shutting stores and offloading expensive high-street leases, the Observer reports.Some 30,000 anti-cuts protesters descended on Budapest this weekend, where European finance ministers were thrashing out the details of Portugal's €80bn (£71bn) bailout. The EU's Ecofin (Economic and Financial Affairs Council) meeting on Friday and Saturday, held in a castle just outside the Hungarian capital, was dominated by the Portuguese financial crisis, reports the Independent on Sunday.Portugal's request for a bailout from its European partners may have been the most visible symptom of the crisis in the eurozone, but the decision taken in Frankfurt to press ahead with an interest rate rise could have a far more corrosive impact on the euro's long-term future. Analysis by City consultancy Fathom, obtained exclusively by the Observer, shows that because the interest rates on the bailouts provided to Greece and Ireland track the European Central Bank's lending rate, a series of increases could push these countries - and Portugal - into default.Britain's quoted companies have endured their toughest quarter of trading since the recession, with the number of profit warnings reaching a two-year high in the first three months of the year, Ernst & Young warns this weekend. Soaring commodity costs, the new year VAT rise and the squeeze on consumer spending made it a tough start to 2011, said the accountancy firm, according to the Sunday Telegraph.Two US retail brands plan to expand on the UK high street despite the slowdown in consumer spending. Urban Outfitters - with a market capitalisation of $4.9bn (£3bn) - said it will double the number of stores it has in Britain and bring new brands to our streets. And, last week, the American designer brand Ralph Lauren signed up to bring its vintage-inspired menswear brand RRL to London, the Independent on Sunday says.The former chief executive of failed construction group Rok has taken on a new business, four months after the "nation's local builder" collapsed. Companies House files say Garvis Snook joined RepairRite (UK) - incorporated in February - as executive chairman on 23 March. Rok owed more than £200m to unsecured creditors when PwC administrators were appointed in November, the Independent on Sunday says.Customers will pay the price of any extra costs heaped on the banks by the Independent Commission on Banking, industry insiders warned this weekend. But at the same time, critics of the banks insisted the ICB's long-awaited report must lead to action or Britain would miss 'the last chance' to reform them. The ICB interim report, due out tomorrow, will include proposals to improve competition between banks and measures to ring-fence High Street services from riskier investment banking operations, reports the Mail on Sunday.Lenders are stepping up their efforts to pursue borrowers in arrears, according to courtroom statistics and anecdotal reports from lawyers. Some lawyers even claim they are seeing a return to the harsher debt- collection practices used before the credit crunch, reports the Mail on Sunday.The dramatic share price rise enjoyed by Aggreko has left staff and managers of the Glasgow-based company sitting on potential windfall gains running into tens of millions of pounds. Last week shares in the company reached an all-time high of over 1,700p - a sixfold increase on the level seen in 2006 - on the back of news of a contract win to supply emergency power in Japan, according to the Scotland on Sunday.