Thursday newspaper round-up: UK banks, Shell, AIM, airport retailers

(ShareCast News) - A review of Britain's banking culture has been ditched by the UK's financial watchdog only months after its launch, in the latest sign that the years of "banker bashing" are coming to an end. The Financial Conduct Authority has abandoned its assessment of culture at retail and wholesale banks operating in the UK, saying each company is unique and cannot be easily compared, according to people familiar with the situation. - Financial TimesInvestors have reacted with anger and threatened legal action after Portugal announced plans to impose heavy losses on almost €2bn of senior bonds at Novo Banco, the bank created from the ruins of Banco Espírito Santo. The bonds are to be transferred from Novo Banco to the so-called "bad bank" created as part of last year's €4.9bn bailout of BES, which will then be liquidated, the Bank of Portugal said in a statement late on Tuesday night. - Financial TimesRoyal Dutch Shell has started production at the Corrib offshore gas field off the western coast of Ireland - 20 years after discovering it. The Corrib field is around 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) under the seabed, which is itself 350 metres below the surface and around 83 kilometres off Ireland. - TelegraphIt was an interesting year for the UK's Alternative Investment Market (Aim), as small-cap stocks outperformed large caps despite an almost 50pc drop in new equity issues. While London's main market endured a wildly unpredictable 12 months, the Aim market ticked marginally higher as it marked its 20th year of existence. - TelegraphBritain's biggest housebuilders possess enough land to create more than 600,000 new homes, an analysis by the Guardian has found, raising questions about whether they are doing enough to solve the housing crisis facing Britain. The nine housebuilders in the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 hold 615,152 housing plots in their landbank, according to financial disclosures. This is four times the total number of homes built in Britain in the past year. - GuardianThe government is launching a review into airport retail taxes after revealing that shops are ripping off travellers by failing to pass on up to 50% of their VAT savings to customers. George Osborne described the practice as unacceptable, as he highlighted research by HMRC showing that some stores are keeping as much as 50p in every £1 of their VAT discounts without passing them on. - GuardianThe cost of hiring the giant oil tankers used to ferry crude around the globe has surged to its highest level in at least six years as a growing global glut of oil fuels rising demand for the specialist vessels. Day rates for a very large crude carrier (VLCC), which can carry 2 million barrels of crude - or 25 per cent more than the UK's average daily consumption - have soared to $67,765 this month, according to Maritime Strategies, a London consultancy. - The TimesRetailers who are looking forward to a happy new year may be disappointed by a warning that sales growth may decline next year. KPMG, the accountancy firm, and Ipsos Mori, the market researcher, said that a panel of retail experts had forecast that retail sales growth would "edge back next year from about 1.8 per cent to 1.7 per cent as consumers look to other sectors in which to spend their disposable income". - The Times