Sunday newspaper round-up: BT, RBS, Tesco

BT is expected to announce as soon as December 15th whether it plans to buy EE or O2 to reenter the mobile phone market, The Sunday Times reported. The FTSE 100 telecoms company was working on a deal at the weekend with a statement due early in the coming week. BT is thought to favour O2 but could still opt for EE, which is jointly owned by Orange and Deutsche Telekom. EE would cost between £10.5bn and £11bn and O2 would cost between £9bn and £9.5bn.Royal Bank of Scotland's chief executive has said it will take up to a decade for the state-controlled bank to repay the £46bn injected by the Government, The Sunday Times wrote. Ross McEwan said the market could only absorb a certain amount of RBS shares each year - perhaps £5bn to £10bn. His warning will dash hopes of a quick sale of the Treasury's stake in RBS after May's general election.Tesco has rocked the supermarket sector with its plans to scrap controversial payments from suppliers, The Mail on Sunday reported. Chief Executive Dave Lewis is focusing on low prices and could cut Tesco's range by up to a third to concentrate on a smaller number of cheaper products. The newspaper cited The Grocer magazine as saying Tesco had written to suppliers giving notice it could ask for price cuts to reflect lower commodity prices.Tesco has asked its auditor to increase scrutiny of stock management in its stores following its latest profit-warning. According to The Sunday Times, the retailer has told PwC to go to more stock takes at branches to focus on "shrink and waste", which records products lost, stolen or spoiled. The paper said the exercise started before Tesco found £263m of overstated profits in first-half forecasts.Tesco is looking for a senior property expert to head the disposal of its non-core real estate, The Sunday Telegraph said. A sale of some of Tesco's property holdings could raise hundreds of millions of pounds for the embattled supermarket group. Selling off property and land is one of the options Chief Executive Dave Lewis is considering to strengthen Tesco's balance sheet.Quindell is looking for a new nominated adviser (Nomad) to replace Cenkos Securities, according to The Sunday Times. The claims company's interim Chairman, David Currie, has approached a number of City brokers to take on the important role as the company's sponsor. But at least one broker has turned down the potentially troublesome role because Quindell is tainted by past irregularities.The falling oil price has caused some explorers to trade for less than the value of their cash reserves while others consider takeovers, The Sunday Times said. The low oil price is likely to lead to collapses and deals. Anthony Lobo, head of oil and gas at KPMG, said many small and medium operators could be bought, especially in all-share deals. The paper listed Ophir Energy, Afren and Tullow Oil as vulnerable. Providence Resources is close to signing a deal with Sequa Petroleum to fund its reservoir in the Celtic Sea.Sam Laidlaw, the outgoing boss of Centrica, has told The Sunday Telegraph that Labour's plan to freeze energy prices could have unintended consequences after the price of oil fell sharply. Laidlaw said some companies would have bought energy earlier than they would otherwise have done to guard against the price freeze, leaving them less room to benefit from the lower oil price. As a result, Labour's planned freeze could hurt consumers, Laidlaw said.Sky and ITV will face off in a showdown over whether pay-TV companies should pay big fees each year to carry free-to-air channels, The Financial Times said on its website. Ofcom, the industry regulator, will on December 15th launch a consultation about public service broadcasters including ITV. An important subject of the consultation is whether Sky and other pay-TV providers should hand over re-transmission fees to ITV and Channel 4. Those broadcasters have argued that such fees would let them spend more on British programmes.Private equity firm 3i is in the running for the UK Government's 40% stake in Eurostar, according to The Sunday Telegraph. The paper indicated 3i had teamed up with French life insurance fund Predica to bid for the stake. After first round bids were accepted on December 8th, potential buyers will enter due diligence with the aim of signing an agreement by the end of the first quarter of 2015. The sale of the high-speed rail operator could raise up to £500m for the Treasury.Barclays is suing Grant Thornton, the accountancy firm, for giving Von Essen Hotels a clean bill of health months before its collapse, The Sunday Telegraph said. The bank lent £250m to the hotel group but has suffered losses. It claims Grant Thornton was negligent in signing off Von Essen's accounts from 2006 to 2009.Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group could suffer more than £30bn of losses if property prices collapse, a Government stress test will show this week, The Mail on Sunday said. But the test will judge that both banks could cope with such a crisis without a new Government bailout, JP Morgan analysts argued.Lloyds Banking Group has sold Avant Homes to three private equity firms. The bank agreed late last week to sell the housebuilder, formerly called Gladedale Group, for £175m, The Sunday Times reported. The company was one of the assets Lloyds inherited when it rescued HBOS in 2009.