Sunday Papers: Miners to scrap £70bn merger - tips, comment and bids

The Sunday Times

* BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto are set to abandon a £70 billion merger of their iron-ore operations after Europe indicated it would block the deal.

* Royal Bank of Scotland cleared the way for the sale of Liverpool Football Club last week by writing off £30 million of fees it was owed.

* Allianz, the giant German insurer, is preparing a surprise £2 billion bid for the Channel tunnel rail link.

* 3i, the private equity backer of the architecture firm, Foster, is understood to be preparing to sell its 40% stake.

* Centrica has launched its biggest asset sell-off since 2003 with a £400 million auction of North Sea oil and gas fields.

* Guardian Media Group is considering a £1.5 billion sale or stock market float of Auto Trader car magazine and its associated websites.

* Peacocks, the cut-price retail chain, has again been put up for sale by its hedge fund owners; two private equity houses are understood to have tabled bids worth about £500 million.

Commodity tips

* Sell tin, buy molybdenum - You cannot buy the ore but can buy shares in molybdenum miners such as Thompson Creek, which is down 12.2% over a year and closed at 7.2p on Friday.

* Sell copper, buy uranium - Shares in Cameco, a uranium miner, are up 3.4% over 12 months and closed at 19p on Friday.

* Sell cotton, buy cocoa - Cocoa is down 15.5% over 12 months at $2,850 a tonne but may now start to recover, according to Nicholas Brooks at ETF Securities.