What the Sunday papers say

SUNDAY EXPRESS HIGH-STREET retailers are in greater danger than they were during 2008’s great recession, with 44 per cent showing signs of financial distress, according to research from Company Watch. VIRGIN Atlantic is to offer flights to Australia again, four years after it scrapped its route to Sydney, according to chief executive Craig Kreeger. NEARLY 40 per cent of start-ups have had to use their owners’ personal savings to stay afloat over the last 18 months, according to Hitachi Capital.

SUNDAY TIMES MELROSE will raise its £7.3billion offer for GKN this week in an effort to clinch the hostile takeover of the FTSE 100 engineer. THE embattled outsourcing giant Capital is plotting a £700million fire sale of assets alongside a heavily discounted rights issue intended to raise a similar sum.

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH ANDREW Bailey, the head of the City watchdog, has called for a cultural overhaul in Britain’s finance industry following fresh controversy over gender pay gaps and in the aftermath of the Presidents Club scandal. FIRMS in the aerospace, hospitality and manufacturing industries, together with business leaders in the North West, Northern Ireland and East Midlands, are the most bullish about Brexit.

OBSERVER NEXT is facing a demand for up to £30m in back pay from thousands of mainly female shop-floor staff in the first major equal pay claim against a British fashion retailer.