Sunday newspaper round-up: Greece, Lloyds, BRICs

Greece's deputy prime minister has said the country will run out of money in six weeks unless it honours its bitterly-disputed EU bailout deal. Speaking exclusively to The Sunday Telegraph, Theodoros Pangalos said he was "very much afraid of what is going to happen" after Greek voters rejected the deal in elections last Sunday. "The majority of the people voted for a very strange mental construction," he said. "We want to be in the EU and the euro, but we don't want to pay anything for the past." The main beneficiary of the election, the hard-Left Syriza coalition, came a startling second on a promise to tear up the deal, which promises EU loans to keep massively-indebted Greece afloat, but demands crippling spending cuts in return. Germany, the principal lender, has said it will stop payments if Greece breaks its promises on spending.Lloyds Banking Group and the Co-operative are thought to have moved a step closer to a deal for the sale of the 632 "Project Verde" branches after putting a hybrid proposal to the City regulator. Under the proposal, which is understood to have received interest from the Financial Services Authority, the mutual would buy the Verde branches through a quasi-reverse takeover process of the Co-op Bank. The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that Verde's interim management team, led by Paul Pester, would transfer with the business and run the Co-op's enlarged banking business. However, the Verde branches would not be removed from Lloyds' technology platforms, and would instead be reliant on the high street bank for its operational capabilities. The proposal is intended to assuage the FSA's questions over management capabilities and governance at the Co-op, as well as questions about its systems expertise.Former Aviva chief executive Andrew Moss demanded a 9.5% pay rise in the weeks before his departure, despite negative investor sentiment towards high pay at the FTSE 100 insurer. As an aside, The Sunday Telegraph also reveals that external front-runner Andy Haste does not want to take the top job at Aviva. It is the latest twist in the new wave of investor revolts which this weekend sees the newspaper reveal that John Thornton, chairman of HSBC's remuneration committee, has been canvassing investors to avoid an investor revolt, while his opposite number at WPP notes UK investors are far more concerned about pay than their American rivals.Retailers in Edinburgh are cashing in on a boom in the number of visitors from the fast-growing "Bric" economies, who are fuelling a 75% surge in duty-free spending. New research reveals that Chinese tourists are the biggest drivers of growth and now account for nearly a third of all tax-free spending in the Scottish capital. Brazilian and Russian shoppers have also been rapidly increasing their presence in the city, while visitors from Thailand remain the highest rollers, spending on average £665 per transaction, a year-on-year rise of 6%. Global Blue, which operates tax-free shopping services across thousands of UK outlets, said parts of Edinburgh such as George Street and Multrees Walk - home to several luxury brands - were able to rival London for top-end shopping, The Scotsman says.Rocketing fuel bills, austerity in Spain and losses at the newly acquired bmi will wipe out profits at the parent company of British Airways this year. International Airlines Group, which also owns Iberia, revealed yesterday that it had fallen to a €263m (£211m) quarterly loss over the quiet winter months, more than five times its seasonal deficit of €47m for the same period a year ago. Soaring oil prices are taking their toll on the aviation industry, with IAG's fuel spending likely to hit €1bn in 2012. BA's purchase of bmi has added to a short-term financial squeeze, sapping €240m from annual profits, writes The Sunday Times.Prospects for a Greek exit from the euro soared last night when the rising left-wing star of Greek politics moved to force new elections, which he is expected to win. Alexis Tsipras of the Radical Left Coalition (Syrzia), which wants to rip up the terms of Greece's international bailout, rejected a last-ditch coalition bid by other three other parties concerned about the impact of of re-run just weeks after Sunday's inconclusive general election. Mr Tsipras said the decision to reject a coalition with the two main pro-bailout parties and a smaller centre-left group was made not by him, but by Greek voters. "It is not Syriza which is rejecting but it is the verdict of the people of Greece," he said, according to The Sunday Times.The owner of British Gas warned that gas bills would rise by another £50 per household this year as its boss escaped with a bloody nose over pay at its annual meeting. Centrica partly blamed its latest tariff rise on a 15% increase in the wholesale price of energy since the beginning of the year. The 6% climb in gas bills takes British Gas's average annual gas bill to £851. Britain's biggest energy supplier raised gas prices by 18% in August. Its electricity and gas duel fuel bill now averages £1,310 a year, The Sunday Times reports.Marks & Spencer is expected to admit next week that it is struggling to meet chief executive Marc Bolland's grand plan to add £3bn to sales over three years. Bolland revealed the plan 18 months ago to increase turnover from £9.7bn in the year to April 2011. In his first presentation on the strategy, he said M&S would reach £11.5bn to £12.5bn in sales by 2014. The plan would have seen £1bn added to each of the international, online and British stores divisions. But modest gains in the past year have left the strategy looking over-ambitious. M&S is expected to confirm in nine days that sales have risen by only £200m to about £10bn, with little hope of a consumer recovery in sight. That means M&S would need to quadruple its growth rate to 7.5% a year for the next two years to reach even the lowest bar of the plan, according to The Financial Mail on Sunday.AB