241 Pizza

Equitable Life: Policyholders have won the right to challenge the Government in the High Court over its failure to compensate more than a million members who lost money when the mutual society was on the brink of collapse in 2000.

Banks: The amount that Britons borrowed through hire purchase agreements soared by 24 per cent to £230 million during March from the same month last year, bucking the trend across the rest of the credit market, according to the Finance and Leasing Association.

Financial complaints: The number of complaints being upheld against financial services companies has soared during the past year, figures show. The Financial Ombudsman Service said that it had found in favour of consumers in 57 per cent of the complaints it investigated in the year to the end of March, higher than the long-term average of between 30 per cent and 40 per cent. The Ombudsman blamed the economic downturn as companies — conscious of their bottom line — chose not to investigate claims properly.

Lehman: PricewaterhouseCoopers, the UK administrator for Lehman Brothers, is reported to have declined to sign a code drawn up by Alvarez & Marsal, administrators to the US holding company, to “provide a framework for multilateral co-operation”. Eight regional administrators signed the code apart from administrators to the key investment banking subsidiaries in the US, Japan and the UK.

Construction & property

Capital & Regional: The property asset manager said that it planned to raise about £50 million of equity for the X-Leisure Unit Trust through an open offer to its existing unitholders in an effort to strengthen the fund’s financial position.

British Property Federation: The industry body called on the Government to use future tax revenues to help to kick-start the construction sector. It said that the UK should introduce a scheme under which money for regeneration could be raised by local councils selling bonds, which would be backed by the increased future tax revenues the regeneration schemes would generate.

Consumer goods

Beer: Volumes in the managed pub sector rose 2.8 per cent in April compared with the same month last year as pubs benefited from good Easter trade, improved weather, weak comparables and price promotions, according to figures from Nielsen.

Greencore: The sandwich company, which supplies supermarkets, garage forecourts and airlines, said that operating profit fell by 11.7 per cent to ¤31.4 million (£27.5 million) in the half-year to March 27.

Engineering

ABB: The Swiss-Swedish engineering group plans to eliminate 540 jobs at half a dozen facilities in France, union sources said, adding that the cuts would affect 20 per cent of the company’s French workforce. They said that the plan would become official at a meeting of ABB’s works committee early next week.

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