A string of oil and gas firms is expected to float on the junior stock market in the coming months as they tap in to a growing appetite for initial public offerings (IPOs). Accountancy firm EY’s latest report on the sector’s smaller companies shows flotation activity has already propelled business confidence to its highest level in 18 months, although the feel-good factor is so far confined to a small number of players, The Scotsman explains.

BT is today accused of making profits of almost £5bn over and above the level deemed acceptable under regulator Ofcom’s own rules. The damning accusation comes in a report written by research firm Frontier Economics and commissioned by Vodafone. It states that since 2005 British consumers and businesses have lost out as BT’s returns for regulated services overall have been consistently above a benchmark rate, The Daily Mail says.

Britain’s business leaders have raised their forecasts for the country’s economic growth through to 2016 today, lending further weight to claims that the recovery is gaining momentum. On the eve of its annual conference, the Confederation of British Industry said it had upped its growth forecast for 2013 to 1.4%, from 1.2% in August, and expected output to build steadily. While growth is expected to slow in the fourth quarter of this year, the CBI said the economic recovery would gather pace over the next two years, upping its 2014 forecast to 2.4% from 2.3% in August, while predicting that growth would hit 2.6% in 2015, according to The Daily Mail.

Public investment in the US has hit its lowest level since demobilisation after the Second World War because of Republican success in stymieing President Barack Obama’s push for more spending on infrastructure, science and education. Gross capital investment by the public sector has dropped to just 3.6% of US output compared with a postwar average of 5%, according to figures compiled by the Financial Times, as austerity bites in the world’s largest economy.

Britain’s membership of the EU brings a net benefit of £3,000 a year to every household, employers’ organisation the CBI will say on Monday as it begins a three-year campaign to stop the country sliding towards the exit. The largest business group, which is holding its annual conference in London, will attempt to rally corporate Britain around remaining in the EU and reforming it from within, the Financial Times explains.

The Co-operative Group will today detail a plan to inject hundreds of millions of pounds into its embattled bank as part of a £1.5bn rescue that means it will cede control of the lender to a group of American hedge funds. As part of a complex deal that has been weeks in negotiation, The Times understands that the hedge funds, known as LT2, will contribute a substantial amount of cash to the rescue as well as exchanging £500m of their bonds for shares.

Greece is set to resume talks with the men who hold the keys to its financial stability after international inspectors said they would return to the country in a move that ends days of drama over whether they would come at all. Mission heads representing the European Union, the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund- the three bodies that have propped up the debt-stricken Greek economy since May 2010 – will meet government officials in Athens on Tuesday, The Guardian reports