Sunday Papers: Barclays’ profit set for £6bn

Top stories

• The Sunday Telegraph: Barclays is to attempt to turn the tide on “banker bashing” this week when it announces that it has exceeded its Government-set lending targets and made profits of as much as £6bn in 2011 despite tough trading conditions.
• The Sunday Telegraph: Reckitt Benckiser is set to ditch quarterly reporting of profits amid fears that the long-term growth of the company is under threat.
• The Sunday Telegraph: The Bank's Monetary Policy Committee is set to announce on Thursday that it is expanding its Quantitative Easing programme from £275 billion to £325 billion.
• The Independent on Sunday: Paul Polman, Unilever's chief executive, has defended his position on scrapping the firm's final salary pension scheme.

Business and economics

• The Sunday Telegraph: Nat Rothschild is to extend an olive branch to Bumi chairman Indra Bakrie this weekend in an attempt to end the feud which threatens to oust the scion of the European banking dynasty from the Indonesian mining company’s board.
• The Sunday Telegraph: Greece's international creditors and the Greek government have failed to reach a debt deal for a third weekend in succession after final negotiations foundered over the country’s restrictive labour laws.
• The Sunday Telegraph: David Webster is to stand down as the chairman of InterContinental Hotels Group after eight years.
• The Independent on Sunday: Leading City institutions fear that the new Financial Services Bill, which is being debated tomorrow, fails to include a clause which will allow the proposed regulation enough scope to protect the UK's international competitiveness.
• The Sunday Telegraph: Mark Zuckerberg’s iron grip on Facebook will put a drag on its share price and store up potentially “devastating” trouble for the future, two of America’s leading corporate governance experts have warned.
• The Independent on Sunday: The US Department of Justice is looking to seize $110 million of Antigua-based Stanford International Bank assets in London, which have been identified by administrator Grant Thornton.
• The Sunday Telegraph: All3Media chief executive Steve Morrison is under pressure to step down after the television production group’s failed attempt to sell last year; the private equity house Permira has a majority stake in the business.
• The Sunday Telegraph: Kate Bleasdale, the recruitment entrepreneur once feted for her success in business, is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
• The Independent on Sunday: Facebook is planning to announce that advertising will soon be allowed on its mobile apps, a move designed to bolster its flotation price.
• The Sunday Telegraph: More than £70 million has so far been paid out to Equitable Life policyholders who lost money when the insurer almost collapsed over a decade ago.
• The Independent on Sunday: BP's chief executive, Bob Dudley, is expected to increase the oil giant's dividend for the first time since it was reinstated for the end of 2010 after a six-month suspension.
• The Independent on Sunday: British fund managers have started buying Italian bonds again, after European Central Bank moves to make investment less risky.

Share tips, comment and bids

• The Sunday Telegraph: Sir John Bond and Mick Davis risk being voted off the board of Xstrata after being accused of negotiating a “cosy stitch-up” as the two companies continue £50 billion merger talks.
• The Independent on Sunday: Game Group has set a deadline of Friday for first-round bids to acquire its overseas business, amid speculation that it faces a combined payment to suppliers of up to £250 million this month.
• The Sunday Telegraph (Comment): Global investor sentiment is now not only split down the middle, but the split is getting deeper and wider. The optimists and pessimists are further apart than ever.
• The Sunday Telegraph (Comment): Why Glenstrata puts Facebook on its mettle for investors - well, thank goodness for that – it’s been a week in which investors have been given the excuse to focus on something other than Europe or macro-economics.
• The Independent on Sunday (Comment): Stripping Goodwin of his honour was contrary to natural justice and the least the coalition can do now is ensure our dysfunctional financial system is fixed.
• The Observer (Comment): Some of this year's payouts will be as startling as ever, but as anger over rewards in the financial sector explodes across front pages, attitudes are shifting even in the City.
• The Observer (Comment): The lesson of the Great Crash was that unequal enrichment provokes asset bubbles, excessive demand for debt and, finally, economic failure. Now we are painfully learning that again.
• The Observer (Comment): Whether or not the social network achieves a $100 billion valuation, a glance at the flotation prospectus should convince right-thinking investors to steer clear.
• The Observer (Comment): Murdoch's non-newsprint newspaper is looking at five to seven years to break even. Does it have that long?
• Mail on Sunday (Comment): According to Facebook’s flotation prospectus last week, its users have registered 100 billion ‘friendships’ since the social network was founded in 2007. But if Facebook floats at anything like the values suggested, it will have to meet some very high hopes. If it fails, founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg will need every friend he can get.
• Mail on Sunday (Comment): Any number of good-looking mergers have fallen apart because boardrooms didn’t want to give way. So we must listen a bit more seriously to the merger plans of Glencore and Xstrata.
• Mail on Sunday (Midas share tip): Buy ZincOx
• Mail on Sunday (Midas update): Hummingbird should continue to climb.