Wednesday newspaper round-up: Magna/Vauxhall, Barratt, BP

Magna is preparing to cut between 1,100 and 1,200 jobs at Vauxhall in a move which would wipe out almost a quarter of the car maker's British workforce. The potential job cuts, set to be across the Ellesmere Port and Luton plants according to a source, caused unions to accuse Magna of a "political stitch-up" with Germany. Tony Woodley, the Unite joint general secretary, warned job cuts could mean the "beginning of the end for Vauxhall". He added: "The truth of the Magna deal is unravelling before our eyes," the Telegraph reports.Barratt Developments will launch a £700m fundraising via a placing and an open offer today as more companies seek to take advantage of the recent gains in stock markets to shore up their balance sheets. Redrow, a rival housebuilder, could also launch a rights issue today aimed at raising £150m, a move backed by Steve Morgan, its chairman. Barratt and Redrow declined to comment on the fundraising moves, but it would come as no surprise if the two housebuilders tapped investors for fresh funds, says the Times following similar moves by rivals.Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, chairman of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), turned on his critics last night, launching a ferocious attack on some in the City for their lack of contrition and their refusal to recognise the need for radical change. Just weeks after provoking a storm with his charge that some banking was "socially useless", Lord Turner went on the offensive again, saying that the financial crisis was "cooked up" by City dealers paid bonuses equal to a lifetime's earnings for the victims of the recession they caused, the Times reports.The US Department of Labor has warned BP of continued safety issues at its Texas refinery, where 15 people were killed and hundreds injured in a 2005 blast that led to widespread questions about the safety of the UK company's US operations. Following the blast, BP agreed to pay a maximum $21m fine, while also improving safety at the refinery - BP's biggest, the FT reports.The headhunter charged with finding a replacement for the man who looks after the taxpayers' interest in Britain's banks has been fired because it recruited a former banker from the disgraced Royal Bank of Scotland. United Kingdom Financial Investments (UKFI), which oversees the taxpayer-owned stakes in banks, has dismissed Odgers Berndtson as the headhunter searching for a new chief executive, after the City firm hired Johnny Cameron, a banker closely associated with the financial crisis, the Times reports. Sir Win Bischoff made his first mark as chairman of Lloyds Banking Group yesterday, parting company with two independent directors, one of whom had been on the bank's board for less than 12 months. Lloyds announced the mini-boardroom reshuffle only a week after Sir Win had arrived at the bank, which is 43.5%-owned by the taxpayer, the Times reports.Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King, has emerged as the leading candidate to become deputy of a Europe-wide board tracking the stability of financial institutions and co-ordinating risk supervision by national bank regulators. King would join as the number two to the European Central Bank governor Jean-Claude Trichet, who will chair the new body, the FT reports.Intel, hoping to emulate the success of Apple's App Store, is leading an initiative that would encourage developers to sell applications for netbooks, PCs and other devices powered by its chips. The world's biggest chipmaker on Tuesday told its annual developer forum in San Francisco that it was creating a platform based on an App Store framework for devices running on its Atom low-power microprocessor , the FT writes.Britain's economic recovery will be "fragile, slow and protracted", the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) predicted yesterday. While the employers' organisation seems confident that the UK has emerged, technically, from recession in the past few months, it stressed that 2010 would be a "tough" year economically, with falling living standards and growth that would actually fall back slightly in the new year, fuelling fears that the UK could experience the much-feared "double dip" or "W-shaped" recession, the Independent reports.Larry Ellison, chief executive of the software giant Oracle, has fulminated against European regulators, saying Sun Microsystems was losing $100m (£61m) a month while its takeover by Oracle remains unapproved. The European Commission is conducting an in-depth competition inquiry into the proposed $7.4bn takeover, saying that it could create a monopoly in the market for database software, the Independent reports.