What The Sunday Business Papers Said

Duke Street Capital, a venture capitalist group, is believed close to clinching a pounds 110m buyout of First Leisure's 28 bowling alleys in connection with Allied Leisure.

The transfer to Connect, the electronic trading system at Liffe, has soured relations with the futures exchange's local dealers. Halifax and NatWest are believed to be backing independent traders in their drive to preserve some open-outcry dealing.

British Airways faces a new battle on Tuesday when Bob Ayling, chief executive, meets trade unions to explain plans to slash a further pounds 225m of costs. Kingfisher, the retail group that owns the Comet electrical chain, is considering a pounds 350m bid for Elkjop, the largest electronic goods retailer in Scandinavia. Kingfisher is understood to be keen to strike a deal in the autumn.

Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, the advertising and marketing services group, is in line for a further $50m pay-out in five years' time under a new incentive scheme to be announced this week.

Brian Souter and Ann Gloag, the brother and sister founders of the train and bus operator Stagecoach, are investing pounds 4m in Cyclacel, a Scottish bio-technology company which focuses on cancer research and is likely to seek a stock market listing sometime in the next century.

Racal Electronics is understood to be holding talks with several potential bidders, including Mannesmann of Germany, about selling its telecoms division for pounds 750m.

Britain's small businesses are experiencing a surge in confidence about recovery prospects, according to a Sunday Times/Taylor Nelson Sofres Business line poll. The survey of 2,000 small firms shows confidence at two-year highs with 34 per cent optimistic compared with 25 per cent in May.

Vodafone is in talks with Scottish Telecom and Martin Dawes Communications about a pounds 300m buyout of their joint mobile phone venture, which targets prepay customers - the industry's fastest growing segment.

British Telecom is poised to invest pounds 3bn in the fast-growing eastern European telecoms sector. BT is bidding for a stake in Poland's state- controlled phone company TPSA and is in a joint venture bidding for a mobile licence in the Czech Republic.

The Sultan of Brunei, once the world's richest man, is in talks to sell Embankment Place for around pounds 235m. The move follows a dramatic narrowing in the Sultan's fortune believed to be the result of losses incurred onAsian property and currencies.

NatWest is to sell unwanted branches to local communities to be used as "people's banks" offering not-for-profit accounts in deprived areas. Last month, it sold a Salford branch to a local housing association.