Wednesday newspaper round-up: BP, Apple, RBS

BP has agreed an unprecedented deal to give the US Government the last word on worldwide asset sales, mergers or corporate restructuring in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.It has bowed to pressure from the Department of Justice, which has asked to be notified at least 30 days before BP undertakes any transaction that could affect the future shape of the company. BP has also agreed to submit monthly financial statements, details of credit and loan agreements and other reports about its financial health, the Times reports.The Daily Telegraph has learned that BP bosses are seeking to calm the concerns of top institutional investors by claiming they are ready to roll out a "robust defence" as soon as the oil leak is capped. Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, was last night touring the Middle East to reassure the oil giant's partners, as sources said the company is still trying to drum up interest in its shares among Gulf investors. BP confirmed that Abu Dhabi, rumoured to be interested in taking a stake, was "on Mr Hayward's itinerary" following a stop at the company's operations in Azerbaijan, the Telegraph adds.Apple has banned dozens of applications from its iTunes digital store after bogus purchases from hundreds of compromised customer accounts drove the apps to the top of the popularity charts for paid electronic books. Apple said it banned a Vietnamese developer using the name Thuat Nguyen for violations including "fraudulent purchase patterns" and removed his apps from the store. But other apps also enjoyed a sudden rush to bestseller status, suggesting that hackers were using the same techniques more broadly, the FT reports.The Bank of England has made nearly £10bn in paper profits by buying UK government bonds as part of emergency efforts to pump money into the British economy. The financial shot in the arm - a buy-back programme that began in March 2009 and involved purchasing nearly £200bn in gilts - has generated gains of £9.7bn for the Bank, according to analysis for the Financial Times.Royal Bank of Scotland is preparing to sell up to £3bn ($5bn) of real estate loans made during the property boom in the largest property disposal from its non-core banking business to date. The disposal is part of a five-year project by RBS under the leadership of Stephen Hester, chief executive, to shed large chunks of its business that the bank can no longer afford to hold, the FT reports.Public-sector pensions are worth twice as much as was previously thought and workers should expect to pay significantly more for them, an influential report will say today. The Public Sector Pensions Commission (PSPC) will suggest that the true value of the main unfunded public-sector pension schemes - which guarantee a percentage of final salary on retirement - is over 40%of salary. The current combined employer and employee contribution rates, it says, are "artificially set" too low at about 20% of salary, reports the Independent.Agricultural Bank of China is poised to pull off the world's biggest flotation in a move that would trump its rival, the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China. AgBank, the last of China's four big banks to go private, has raised $19.2bn (£12.7bn) in Hong Kong and Shanghai and could push that to more than $22bn if over-allotment options are exercised, the Times reports.Marks & Spencer is facing the fresh threat of a shareholder rebellion as an influential pension fund consultant called for a veto of its pay report at the annual meeting next week. Pirc, which advises funds with £1.5 trn in assets, said that it was concerned about a £14.8 million signing-on package for Marc Bolland, the retailer's new chief executive, the Times reports.QinetiQ is to make hundreds of scientists redundant as it restructures its operations to cope with falling government spending. The former Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, which was privatised four years ago, said that 391 jobs would go in Britain, and hinted that more would be cut later, the Times reports.One of the private equity world's most sought-after secrets has finally been revealed with the disclosure that the co-founders of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) each hold stakes worth about $800m (£528m) in the buyout firm. Henry Kravis and George Roberts, who featured in the 1990 book Barbarians at the Gate, each own 87m shares in the firm, which will list its shares in New York on July 15, the Telegraph reports.European banking supervisors are expected to try to assuage concerns that their stress tests have not been tough enough, by publishing details of the types of calamities banks have been asked to withstand. As the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) publishes an outline of its methodology, European parliamentarians will be voting on rules to toughen up bonus restrictions on bankers and increase the number of institutions expected to heed calls for bonus restraint,the Guardian reports.