According to The Independent, the Government is starting the search for banks to handle a possible initial public offering for Royal Mail as it pushes ahead with the privatisation. A flotation this year is the preferred option, but all options are open. It is also looking at accessing the debt markets.

The Telegraph writes that Primark, the fashion chain owned by Associated British Foods, is to pay compensation to victims of the clothing factory collapse in Bangladesh which supplied the retailer.

The Guardian says that oil giant BP has been “rebuked” by a Norwegian watchdog over a leak at a major platform in the North Sea in 2012. Authorities blamed BP for poor maintenance and “serious breaches of regulations”.

Alfredo Sáenz, the chief executive officer of Santander who resigned yesterday, is to retire with one of the largest pension pots in executive history, The Times says. He is leaving with a pension pot with a value of €88m.

Financial Times reports that Italy’s new Prime Minister, Enrico Letta, has cancelled up to €6.0bn of planned tax rises after saying that Europe had to change its focus on austerity.

A deal by the UK pension fund of Kodak is helping the US company exit bankruptcy, writes The Independent. The fund will buy the firm’s consumer and scanner operations for $650m to wipe out its $2.8bn debt to 15,000 fund members.

Rising cases of suicide, HIV infection and even a malaria outbreak are a result of cutbacks in Europe and North America, building the case against Chancellor George Osborne’s “relentless austerity push”, The Guardian reports, citing new research.