Thursday newspaper round-up: Housing, Barclays, Reckitt Benckiser

HSBC said it was on alert for the Bank of England to intervene in the housing sector amid growing concern that a collapse in the booming London market could threaten Britain's economic recovery. The bank's finance director, Iain Mackay, said: "What we are all are all waiting for or perhaps wondering about is, as London or the south-east continues to move ahead, will the financial policy committee or the Bank of England reflect on how they wish to put some controls on lending into that sector? "I don't think anybody has got a line of sight there. It's something the Bank [of England] is going to think through." - The GuardianBarclays may announce up to 20,000 job cuts as part of its strategy to restore the bank to full profitability. The scale of the losses will be far higher than the figure flagged earlier this year. The controversial investment banking arm is likely to bear the brunt but the retail division will also come under scrutiny and City analysts expect hundreds of the group's 1,500 branches to be closed within the next year. - The Times A new wave of shareholder activism is building after investors in some the country's best-known companies showed their disapproval over boardroom pay. Consumer goods giant Reckitt Benckiser suffered the biggest revolt of the day on Wednesday with more than one in three investors actively voting against the executives' remuneration report at the Dettol to Nurofen maker. A further one in five voted against the FTSE 100 company's forward-looking remuneration policy. - The Daily TelegraphCadbury owner Mondelez International is joining forces with Douwe Egberts maker DE Master Blenders 1753 to brew up the biggest coffee firm in the world. Master Blenders is paying £3bn to snap up Mondelez's coffee business, which includes Kenco, to create Jacobs Douwe Egberts. It will be the world's biggest pure-play coffee firm with annual revenues of over £4bn. Mondelez will have a 49% stake. It hopes to tap in to growing consumer demand for coffee and take on arch-rival Nestlé, maker of Nescafé. - The Daily ExpressFirst-time buyers will need permanent help from the state to get on to the housing ladder once interest rates start to rise, putting pressure on the government to keep subsidy schemes designed to lift Britain out of recession in place. Lombard Street Research, a leading economic consultancy, has warned that the Help to Buy scheme may have to become a permanent feature of the housing market when the interest rate begins to climb from its record low of 0.5%. - The Times King Digital, the newly floated British games firm behind Candy Crush Saga, has seen its shares plunge 13% after revealing a $63m drop in revenues from the hit smartphone title as players begin to lose interest. Nervous investors disregarded an overall return to revenue growth at King Digital, which has lost nearly a quarter of its stockmarket value since floating on the New York Stock Exchange in March. - The GuardianAB