Tuesday newspaper round-up: Thomas Cook, bank branches, Lloyd's of London, Metro Bank

(Sharecast News) - While thousands of holidaymakers were waiting in overseas airports for the government's emergency airlift to get them home and Thomas Cook staff were losing their jobs, former bosses of the stricken travel firm came under fire for receiving payouts worth more than £35m in the last 12 years. Manny Fontenla-Novoa, who led the acquisition spree that saddled the company with more than £1bn of debt, was handed more than £17m in just over four years as boss of Thomas Cook, boosted by bonuses awarded for slashing 2,800 jobs following the merger with MyTravel. He quit in 2011 as the tour operator came close to collapse. - Guardian
More than a third of the UK's bank branches have shut for good in less than five years, while hundreds of those that remain have reduced their opening hours, according to a report. The consumer group Which? found there were 3,303 closures to the bank branch network between January 2015 and last month, as banks continued to shut branches at an "alarming rate". - Guardian

Hedge funds betting on the demise of Thomas Cook are set to pocket hundreds of millions of pounds following the travel giant's collapse into liquidation. Speculators will profit from the tour operator's woes after short-selling its shares and using credit default swaps (CDS) - derivatives that pay out to investors if a company defaults on its debt. The failure to secure a last-gasp rescue deal puts the hedge funds in line for a $250m (£201m) windfall from the risky default insurance, Bloomberg calculated. - Telegraph

Lloyd's of London has pledged urgent action to overhaul its culture after finding that almost one in 10 staff had witnessed sexual harassment at the City institution. A survey of more than 6,000 Lloyd's workers laid bare the scale of the challenge facing the 333-year-old insurance market, which has been rocked by allegations of sexual harassment and bullying towards female staff. - Telegraph

Swiss prosecutors have opened a criminal inquiry after one of the most senior former bankers at Credit Suisse complained that the bank had hired private detectives who tailed and threatened him. Iqbal Khan, former head of Credit Suisse's international wealth management division, was in the three-month interim between leaving the bank and joining UBS, its arch-rival, when the incident is said to have happened last Tuesday. - The Times

"Market conditions" have prompted Metro Bank to halt a plan to raise £250 million from a bond issuance to investors. The bank said late yesterday that it had "decided not to proceed at this time". The about-turn may unnerve shareholders in the troubled bank, which has been hit by an accounting error and regulatory investigations. - The Times