The 10 biggest business stories on Friday March 18

HSBC starts hunt for new chairman; UBS chief takes home £10.2m; Britain’s rail regulator criticises complicated compensation rules

Train companies must make it easier for passengers to claim refunds for delayed journeys, Britain’s rail regulator has said. (Getty Images)

1. HSBC chairman Douglas Flint has announced that the hunt for his successor has begun.He also said that his successor would lead the search for a new chief executive to replace Stuart Gulliver.

2. BT is set to appoint Simon Lowth, former chief financial officer at gas producer BG Group, as its new finance chief. Mr Lowth replaces Tony Chanmugam, who is moving to oversee the integration of mobile network EE into BT.

3. Train companies must make it easier for passengers to claim refunds for delayed journeys, Britain’s rail regulator has said. The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has admitted that 80 per cent of passengers do not claim compensation.

4. Toshiba, the Japanese electronics maker, said it was cooperating with a US probe into accounting practices, a day after its shares tumbled on a report it was under investigation.

5. A diamond ring worn for decades by the American child star, Shirley Temple, is to be auctioned in New York next month with a starting price of $25 million (£17million).

6. Peter Hargreaves, Hargreaves Lansdown co-founder, is backing the UK's withdrawal from the European Union. "I'm firmly convinced, that day - hopefully - we decide to leave, that little bit of insecurity, that little bit of unknown will be an absolute fillip to everyone,“ he told the BBC.

7. Alphabet, Google's parent company, is trying to sell Boston Dynamics, the robotics company it bought in late 2013, Bloomberg reports. Among the potential buyers are Toyota and Amazon, which has a robotics division focused on automation in its warehouses.

8. US crude rose as far as $40.55 (£28.05) in Asian trade overnight — its highest level this year. On Thursday, the contracted rose 4.5 per cent to close at $40.20 (£27.81), after climbing as high as $40.26 (£27.85).

9. Sergio Ermotti, UBS chief executive, total compensation for 2015 came in at CHF 14.3 million (£10.2 million), that's 11.1m francs more than he took home in 2014, according to the Swiss bank's annual report.

10. A Chinese court held an outdoor trial for eight migrant workers protesting against unpaid wages to ”educate the public in law“, the state-run Beijing News reported on Friday.