LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Britain is prepared to reject Canadian beef treated with hormones, dealing a setback for the trade talks, which had been due to formally start in April. One Whitehall source said there was "very little room to move" on food standards and that it would be extremely difficult to climb down on the issue. Trade officials confirmed that food standards would be a "red line" during the negotiations. - Sunday Telegraph
Rio Tinto is expected to fork out one of the largest-ever annual dividends during the coming week. The approximately £12.1bn payout for shareholders will likely include a special dividend. The forecast from the analyst consensus is that sales topped $65bn in 2021, for pre-tax profits of $39bn and a $10.20 per share dividend. That would be the second-largest ever dividend in the history of the FTSE 100, behind Vodafone's £18bn payout in 2014. The most optimistic analyst anticipates a payout of $11.60 per share. - Sunday Times

Credit Suisse "strongly" rejected allegations and insinuations about its purported business practices. The reply from one of the lender's spokespersons followed a huge data leak containing data on the accounts of 30,000 of the lender's clients with £80bn of assets in total. The details of the funds, whose owners included corrupt businessmen and politicians, were published at the weekend by a consortium of media companies, including The Guardian and The New York Times. Credit Suisse also said 90% of the accounts referenced had been closed or were in the process of being closed and that some of the accounts mentioned in the leak dated back to the 1940s. - The Sunday Telegraph

Clipper Logistics may be set to leave the stock market as part of a buy out transaction that could be worth over £1.0bn. Investment bank Rothschild is advising the bidder while Numis is the advisor for the company. The sale could be announced within weeks. The company's business has seen a boom due to soaring demand for e-commerce in the wake of the pandemic and now has 52 warehouses and more than 8,000 staff. - The Sunday Times

An out-of-town retail property portfolio owned by Mike Ashley's Frasers Group has been put on the auction block and could bring in over £320m. A total of 16 assets are set to go as Ashley looks to cash in on renewed demand for retail parks, which some investors believe are less at risk from e-commerce than high streets. Separately, Hammerson is in negotiations for a potential sale of the Victoria Centre in Leeds. - The Sunday Times

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