The Sunday Times: RBS to offload Hoare Govett as new cuts bite

US oil supermajor Exxon Mobil is understood to have sounded out London-listed Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP) over a possible deal that could value the Kurdistan-focused group at around £7bn.

The oil giant has defied Iraq's government by signing up to drill in disputed territory

US Outlook: The "data-driven evaluation" to which Hewlett-Packard has belatedly subjected the proposed spin-off of its personal computer business, probably did not need to go further than measuring the share-price decline on the day it was announced. It was 20 per cent.

Ronnie O'Sullivan has apologised for claiming he felt "raped" playing in the lower-profile Players Tour Championship (PTC) series.

"This is another shining

One group seemingly immune to the impact of inflation, unemployment, economic stagnation and all the other woes afflicting this country is the men (it's usually men) who sit around the boardroom tables of Britain's biggest public companies. Income Data Services (IDS), which totted up pay, bonuses and various share awards, says FTSE 100 directors pocketed an average 49 per cent rise in the last financial year to bring their annual remuneration to an average £2.7m. Chief executives made do with a 43 per cent rise, poor lambs.

Outlook Alliance Boots has been taking flak for allegedly putting the future returns of its 20,000 pensioners at risk by offering to change the way plans are paid.

Swiss officials have gone into Libya to help the National Transitional Council (NTC) freeze the Gaddafi regime's assets in their tax haven.

Trade

The British oil giant has reinvented itself since the Gulf of Mexico spill, but it will have to find new markets to impress investors, writes Mark Leftly

BP was left out in the cold yesterday after its US rival ExxonMobil struck an agreement to explore Russia's oil-rich Arctic continental shelf with Rosneft, moving in just months after the collapse of a similar pact between the state energy giant and the UK group.

Outlook BP could not have expected Rosneft to wait forever. Still, it is always painful to see one's former partner stepping out with someone else, let alone a major rival – and all the more so given that BP and Rosneft were just about to exchange vows before a troublesome member of the audience announced it certainly did know of a lawful impediment to the wedding. Sadly, BP's Russian partners at TNK-BP could not be persuaded to forever hold their peace.