Sunday newspaper round-up: BT Group, GSK, Derivatives Trading

(Sharecast News) - Potential suitors including private equity outfits CVC and Apax, and infrastructure investors including Brookfield and Macquarie, have conducted fresh analyses to determine the value of BT's Openreach unit, which owns the infrastructure that connects most homes in the UK. The cable division might fetch £40bn. Franco-Israeli telecoms tycoon Patrick Drahi's Altice UK already owns a 12.1% stake in BT and from 11 December will be able to buy more shares. That would allow him to apply greater pressure on BT's board to sell a stake or even all of Openreach. A full takeover nevertheless is considered to be unlikely, due to the group's size, pension fund liabilities and potential political hurdles. - Financial Mail on Sunday
GlaxoSmithKline will take the fight to activist investor Elliott Management over the coming week, by disclosing plans for revolutionary treatments for HIV that would do away with patients' need to take tablets regularly and may even point to a possible cure. The drug giant's HIV unit, Viiv Healthcare, is a critical part of GSK's drugs arm, which was set to be split form the consumer division at the start of 2022. Deborah Waterstone, the head of Viiv, was due to provide an update on GSK´s research into a possible cure for HIV on Monday with clinical trials set to begin as early next year. - Sunday Times

The most powerful lenders in the euro area are demanding long-term access to the City's multi-trillion dollar market for trading derivatives. Together with finance trade bodies, they inked a letter to Brussels warning of a 'cliff edge' for the bloc should it not extend the exemptions that allow European Union institutions to make trades in the UK and other major markets. The exemptions were currently due to expire in June 2022. - Sunday Telegraph

Some of Barclays's largest shareholders have been warned by the chairman, Nigel Higgins, that the electronic mails between its former boss, Jes Staley, and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, would be "uncomfortable" to read. Higgins's apparent intention was to firefight the unfolding scandal. The investigation into Staley's conduct assessed roughly 1,200 emails with Epstein from when the former of the two was working at JP Morgan's private bank. - Financial Mail on Sunday

Dale Vince, the green-energy entrepreneur, slammed Good Energy management´s plans to sell its wind farms and other generation assets and to focus instead on services for electric vehicles, such as its Zap Map platform for electric cars. Vince, whose own firm, Ecotricity, had repeatedly tried to buy out Good Energy and already owned 27% of its competitor, said the moves made "no sense" and that he should have been informed during his takeover attempts, vowing to hold Good Energy's directors to account. - Sunday Times