Sunday newspaper round-up: GlaxoSmithKline, Rare Earths, Amazon

(Sharecast News) - Top investors in Glaxo Smith Kline are piling pressure on Dame Emma Walmsley after the activist New York hedge fund Elliott Management was revealed to have built a significant stake. Two top-20 investors in the drugs and consumer goods giant said that the chief executive's future was in doubt after four years of disappointing performance. One top-20 investor said there was "no desire to protect her" among institutional shareholders. Another said that Walmsley, 51, should step aside after her plan to break the business in two is carried out and hand over to her lieutenant, Luke Miels. - Sunday Times
Fears China will "turn off the taps" on Britain's green revolution has forced ministers to enter secret talks with seven commonwealth countries to mine their rare earths. Officials from the Department of International Trade and the Foreign Office have had meetings with representatives from Australia, Canada, Malawi and Tanzania in a bid to persuade them to supply rare earths, as well as critical metals such as lithium to the UK. Rare earths are found in abundance across the world, but are difficult to process and China controls around 90 per cent of the market. - Sunday Telegraph

Amazon is poised to seize upon the recent surge in interest in cryptocurrencies, bringing in a team of British financial regulation experts amid speculation it is on the brink of launching its own digital token. The US tech giant is understood to have poached at least six regulatory specialists from UK banking watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the past two years. At least four of those have joined in the past year, taking up roles including public policy manager for regulation and chief compliance officer for payments divisions. - Sunday Telegraph

Britain will overtake Germany to become the largest economy in Europe by 2050, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps is predicting. He said Brexit has given Britain 'huge economic freedoms' to boost growth and he said he is putting aviation 'right at the heart' of the Government's mission to create Global Britain. - Financial Mail on Sunday

In another torrid year for the aviation industry, the coming month of May offers a little hope. The red-letter day in every UK airline executive's diary is 17 May, from which international leisure travel from Britain may be permitted. This week, ministers may finally divulge where and when holidaymakers can go, with a "green list" of countries that can be visited without quarantine on return. The Department for Transport insists it is on track to confirm, by "early May" as promised, whether planes can take off, and where to. - Guardian

Fund manager Ruffer has sold the majority of its holding in Bitcoin after Twitter posts by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk sent the price of the cryptocurrency soaring, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Ruffer, a conservative asset management firm, surprised the City in November when it put 2.5 per cent of its customers' money - worth $600million (£433million) at the time - into Bitcoin. - Financial Mail on Sunday

Cosworth, the engineering firm best-known for producing powerful engines for high-performance Fords in the 1980s, is racing towards a float expected to value it at more than £100m. The Northamptonshire-based business has appointed Peel Hunt to advise on a stock market debut in London as soon as this summer. Cosworth, which employs almost 500 in the UK, Europe and North America, is part-owned by Kevin Kalkhoven, an Australian venture capitalist and motorsport entrepreneur, who bought the company from Ford in 2004 with his business partner Gerald Forsythe. - Sunday Telegraph

He has taken a battering for changing the name of FTSE100 funds giant Standard Life Aberdeen to Abrdn. But last night, chief executive Stephen Bird hit back, telling The Mail on Sunday that traditional fund management is 'in decline' - and revealing that the rebrand is part of a major strategy shift. The fund group, which manages £535billion, was mocked last week when it unveiled Abrdn. - Financial Mail on Sunday

Millions of employees could be given the chance to switch permanently to more flexible working arrangements under forthcoming guidance designed to encourage firms to make long-term some of the emergency changes ushered in by the pandemic. The government's flexible working taskforce is drawing up guidance - before the expected lifting of the remaining lockdown restrictions, including the requirement to work from home, on 21 June - to support the emergence of new, hybrid ways of working. For example, staff might come into offices only occasionally and work at home or at a neighbourhood cafe for the rest of the week. - Guardian