Sunday newspaper round-up: Rolls Royce, RBS, Public finances

A former employee at the centre of the Rolls-Royce corruption case has claimed the company paid a second bribe of 25m dollars to an Indonesian businessman to help it to secure a 2010 jet engine contract. The British aero-engine maker won a 420m dollars (260m pounds) contract in July 2010 from Garuda, the Indonesian airline, to supply Trent engines for six Airbus A330 aircraft. The new allegations will raise the pressure on Rolls-Royce, which is fighting to shore up its battered reputation. The biggest threat will be in America, home of its bitter rivals General Electric and Pratt & Whitney. Industry sources said an investigation by the Department of Justice was likely. It can order big fines, The Sunday Times says. Demand for temporary power in the US following superstorm Sandy is expected to have benefited Aggreko in the wake of a profits alert. While storm-related revenues are not unusual for Aggreko, Seymour Pierce analyst Caroline de La Soujeole said events in the US could provide a 2% boost to pre-tax forecasts for its year end. The Glasgow-based company is due to post a trading update tomorrow. "As Sandy has been described as the largest hurricane in Atlantic storm history, we therefore feel justified to use as a base case scenario the events of 2008 - Hurricane Gustav and Ike - and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which were the last two particularly eventful years for Aggreko," said the analyst. The group is currently tipped to post full-year pre-tax profits of £364.8 million for 2012, up from £307.1m in 2011, The Scotsman on Sunday says. Secretive, Geneva-based Trafigura is drawing up plans to list its Puma Energy subsidiary in a deal that could see the company valued at up to £3bn. Reports over the weekend suggested Trafigura and Puma were only weeks away from finishing preparatory work that could lead to a flotation of the petrol stations to oil refinery business. Trafigura hit the headlines two years ago when it was accused of poisoning swathes of Ivory Coast through the import of toxic waste. Although the company denied any wrongdoing it paid out $120m to settle the case. The flotation of Puma would be the largest London listing in the oil and gas sector since its rival Glencore raised over £6bn on the London Stock Exchange last year, The Sunday Telegraph reports. John Lewis has received a healthy dose of Christmas cheer, smashing sales records last week. The 148-year-old retailer notched up sales of £147.8m, up 11.1% on the same week last year and topping the previous week's record. Many revellers have been opting for the formal look for the party season, with women snapping up long lace dresses and men opting for three-piece suits, The Financial Mail on Sunday reports.Speaking over the weekend London Mayor Boris Johnson said his "preferred option" was for the UK to remain in the European Union (EU), but added that if it were to leave "I don't think that is necessarily the end of the world". "My preferred option is for us to stay in there," the Conservative London mayor told The Andrew Marr Show. While he supports Britain in the EU, he said the UK should be prepared to walk away if it was not able to negotiate a new relationship. "I would like to be able to campaign for a single market and the withdrawal from a lot of the nonsensical policies," he added. Mr Johnson also said he would like to see the public given the chance to vote on the issue before the next general election in 2015 although he did not expect it to happen, according to The Sunday Telegraph.An American vulture fund is plotting to seize control of HMV after the high street chain's warning that its future is hanging by a thread. Apollo Global Management, one of the biggest investment funds on Wall Street, has secretly snapped up a chunk of the retailer's loans. In its interim results last week, it said it was likely to breach key loan agreements in January and April. Lenders can call time on a business that breaches its banking covenants. The announcement, which accompanied news of a £37.3m first-half loss, sent HMV's shares crashing 39% to 2.49p, valuing it at just £10m. Apollo has bought more than £20m of the company's senior debt from Allied Irish Bank, equivalent to over 10% of HMV's outstanding loans. It is the first time one of its lenders has sold some of its loans, The Sunday Times says. Barclays has described accusations from the US energy regulator that its staff attempted to manipulate the American electricity market as "baseless" and "hollow". In a defence filed with a US court, Barclays said the evidence supplied against it by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was "plainly insufficient" following the regulator's decision in October to hit the bank with fines and other penalties totalling $470m (£291m). As well, Barclays said the regulator's case was "unsupportable" and relied "heavily on its subjective interpretations of a few snippets of e-mails and instant messages," according to The Sunday Telegraph. Exxon Mobil is considering taking part in Britain's shale gas revolution. The world's largest oil group has entered talks to buy a stake in the Bowland shale project in Lancashire, owned by IGas, the London-listed developer. The interest of the $400bn (£245bn) Exxon will be a boost to the government, which last week lifted an 18-month ban on fracking, the controversial method used to extract gas locked in underground rock formations. The freeze was imposed after drilling by Cuadrilla Resources, a privately held rival, caused two small earth tremors near Blackpool. IGas launched a search this summer for a partner to help it develop the Bowland project. It is understood that Shell, Total of France and Norway's Statoil are also considering bids, The Sunday Times writes. Britain´s largest technology company will slash its corporation tax bill by nearly £100m a year thanks to government plans to turbocharge the country's high-tech industries. ARM Holdings, the Cambridge-based microchip designer, will be able to halve its tax rate over the coming years after George Osborne introduces big breaks for technology and pharmaceutical businesses from next year. The so-called patent box will apply a lower rate of corporation tax to profits generated from inventions and intellectual property. The move, which is designed to spur innovation, could see ARM's tax rate plummet from 28% last year to as low as 15% within four years, according to analysts, The Sunday Times reports. Royal Bank of Scotland is braced for a penalty of more than £350m for its role in the global interest rate rigging scandal. The taxpayer-controlled bank is understood to be nearing a deal with regulators in Europe and North America over allegations that some of its staff attempted to manipulate Libor, the benchmark international borrowing rates. RBS is expected to settle with the watchdogs early next month, with fines and other penalties likely to exceed the £290m that Barclays agreed to pay in June. The deal will deliver a fresh blow to Britain's beleaguered financial sector, whose reputation has been shredded by scandals over the past year, The Sunday Times reports. George Osborne faces a big hole in the public finances as it emerged this weekend that the auction of the fourth-generation radio spectrum may raise little more than one third of the £3.5bn he predicted. Ofcom, which is running the 4G auction, is understood to have put a reserve price of £1.2bn on the sale. The media regulator declined to comment. Controversially, the Chancellor has already begun spending the proceeds from the auction of 4G, used to supply superfast internet access to mobile phones, even though not a penny has yet been raised. In his Autumn Statement, he quoted an estimate from the Office for Budget Responsibility - the independent public finances forecaster - that £3.5bn was due from the sale. However, it has emerged that neither the Treasury nor the OBR discussed with Ofcom how much the sale was likely to raise, the Financial Mail on Sunday says. AB