New Car Sales Accelerate By 18% In March

New car registrations were up almost 18% in March compared to the same period last year.

A total of 464,824 cars were registered in the month, the highest level for a decade - nearly 15,000 a day.

Last month's figure and the previous high, recorded in March 2004, were the two best registration periods since 1999 when the motor industry ditched the August new number plate for a twice-yearly system.

The sales speed-up in March has taken year-so-far sales to 688,122, a rise of 13.7% on the total for the first three months of 2013.

Trade body SMMT said the surge reflects a return to confidence to Britain, especially as more than half of the total went to private buyers.

"New car registrations surged 17.7% in March to 464,824 units, a surprisingly strong level of growth and a reflection of intensifying consumer confidence and the availability of great new products," SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said.

"Given the past six years of subdued economic performance across the UK, there is still a substantial margin of pent-up demand that is contributing to a strong new and used car market."

The month of March is the traditional registration high point, however the industry expects growth to continue.

"There has never been a better time to buy a new car thanks to attractive finance deals and advanced technologies that often make new cars cheaper to run," Mr Hawes said.

"We expect the market to continue to perform positively for the rest of the year, albeit at a more modest rate."

The best-selling car remains the Ford Fiesta, with 25,753 registered in the month.

That was 58% above the next best-seller, the stablemate Focus (16,860), and the Vauxhall Corsa (16,231).

VW Golf, Vauxhall Astra and Nissan Qashqai were the next best models, along with the VW Polo, Fiat 500, BMW 3 Series and Toyota Yaris.

Alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) saw a rise of 35% year-on-year, however the "green vehicle" total was still below 2% of all cars put on the road.

There is now expected to be a surge in AFVs sales, amid an increased awareness of air pollution.

Diesel-powered cars, whose exhaust emission particulates are known to be harmful, made up 47.8% of sales in March.

Many heavily-populated areas of Britain have been blanketed in thick smog this week, due to atmospheric conditions and vehicle pollutants.

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House Of Fraser Bought By Chinese Tycoon

A Chinese tycoon has bought British high street chain the House of Fraser, according to sources.

Reuters said a 89% stake was bought by Sanpower, a Nanjing-based conglomerate controlled by Yafei Yuan.

Sources have told Sky News an announcement is expected imminently.

House of Fraser will now seek strategic growth in mainland China as part of a wider, global expansion.

The deal values the department stores at more than £450m.

The two sides are thought to have been in secret discussions for several months.

This follows a protracted search for investors led by House of Fraser's chairman, Don McCarthy.

Just months ago the company was tipped for a public flotation.

But Sky News City Editor Mark Kleinman reported in February that Mr McCarthy apparently had no desire to chair a publicly-listed company.

Sports Direct and Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley was also tipped as a making a possible move for the company.

The British group enjoyed strong Christmas trading, with like-for-like sales at its 61 stores up more than 7% during the three weeks to December 28 and more than 4% in the nine weeks to the same date.

Established during the 1850s, House of Fraser was taken private in 2006 for £351m by a consortium led by Baugur alongside Mr McCarthy and entrepreneur and philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter.

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Microsoft XP And Office 2003 Security Warning

Britain's data protection watchdog has warned owners of Microsoft's Windows XP and Office 2003 products of future potential security flaws.

The warning from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) comes as the software giant is set to end official support of the products on April 8.

Despite Windows XP being considered an aged operating system, it still powers nearly a third of all PCs worldwide, according to NetMarketShare.

UK software firm AppSense believes three-quarters of UK firms have XP within their networks, while Gartner says many businesses have up to 20% running on XP.

The ICO said once official support ends, no update release to overcome flaws will be issued, risking data breaches of machines used by businesses and private users.

The watchdog said the problem will get worse over time as more vulnerabilities are gradually discovered.

It said that will increase opportunities for attackers to exploit and potentially gain unauthorised access to systems.

ICO technology group manager Dr Simon Rice also warned that the issue is not limited to these two products.

He said: "Organisations regularly end support for their older products.

"And those with supported systems still need to be vigilant, as vulnerabilities will be discovered over time."

Dr Rice urged businesses to be prepared for the ending of support.

He said: "As a responsible data controller, it is your organisation's responsibility to make sure you have the measures in place to keep people's details safe."

He added: "Where you cannot apply a (software) update, you may need to put additional measures in place to mitigate the risk."

Approached by Sky News, a Microsoft spokesperson said warning about the end of support was announced some time ago.

It said the user notifications raised the issue of potential virus and security risks.

:: Microsoft has given advice for users of both Office 2003 and Windows XP on its website.

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Lloyds Seeks Approval To Boost Pay Of Top 400

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

Lloyds Banking Group is to seek approval to boost the pay packets of up to 400 of its most senior staff in a move which could stoke political tensions over bankers' remuneration.

Sky News has learnt that the taxpayer-backed lender will disclose in documents ahead of its annual general meeting (AGM) that it wants the flexibility to pay the higher-than-expected number employees up to 200% of their salaries in bonus awards.

The 400 executives, who are known as 'code staff' by regulators because of their designation as the holders of the most important jobs at the bank, can only be paid the equivalent of their base salaries without shareholder approval under new European Union rules.

The move by Lloyds to seek approval to double the level of variable pay will put the Treasury in a delicate position as it strives to avoid being seen to endorse bumper bonuses, particularly at banks in which it has a direct ownership interest.

One route allowing it to navigate this dilemma would involve UK Financial Investments, the agency which manages taxpayers' stake, abstaining on the remuneration-related votes at Lloyds' AGM, although final decisions are not thought to have been taken.

Approximately 75 of Lloyds' staff are being awarded allowances which, in line with similar deals at other banks, count towards their base pay and will enable higher bonuses to be paid from this year.

Antonio Horta-Osorio, the bank's chief executive, will receive a £900,000 allowance in deferred shares which will boost his guaranteed annual pay to £2.6m.

Lloyds, less than 25% of which is now owned by the taxpayers after a £4.2bn sale of Government shares last week, has identified the 400 eligible employees in accordance with definitions imposed by the European Banking Authority.

The new EU rules have prompted major banks operating in Europe - including Barclays, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Morgan Stanley - to devise new monthly or quarterly payments, drawing criticism from politicians in Brussels.

George Osborne, the Chancellor, has mounted a legal challenge to the pay ratio cap, arguing that it will do little to curb risk-taking and may damage the City of London.

Lloyds' move to seek approval for the higher payments will be disclosed in the circular to shareholders ahead of next month's AGM, which Treasury sources said was expected to be distributed in the coming days.

The bank is also understood to be tabling a resolution that will ask investors to approve the ability to pay a scrip dividend for the first time since it was bailed out by taxpayers following the merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS in 2008.

Lloyds has already said that it hopes to resume dividend payments in the second half of 2014 and anticipates becoming a distributor of chunky payouts to shareholders in the coming years.

Sources said that the Lloyds documentation would also include a resolution seeking approval for the bank to draw up a prospectus for a possible sale of shares to the general public.

Such a plan, which is unlikely to be launched by the Treasury until the autumn, could see billions of pounds of shares offered to retail investors.

Lloyds declined to comment on Thursday.

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High Streets Show 'Resilience' After Crash

Around 80% of high street stores left vacant after the collapse of successive retail chains have now been filled, new research suggests.

Accountancy giant Deloitte said Britain's high streets were recovering at a greater pace than rival locations such as shopping centres and retail parks.

Britain's retail environment suffered a major change in the wake of the financial crisis more than five years ago, with a number of household names disappearing.

Chains including Woolworths, HMV, Blockbuster, Comet and Jessops vanished from the retail landscape but Deloitte said "great resilience" was being shown in re-occupancy.

It examined almost 30 major administrations since 2009 and used research from the Local Data Company to track the status of around 5,900 shop premises.

Around two-thirds of the shopfronts were left vacant at some point, but many have since been filled, it said.

The research showed that charity shops, pawnbrokers and bookmakers had limited interest in acquiring the empty shops, instead conventional retailers filled the void.

According to the data, just 3% of shops post-administration have been occupied by charity shops and less than 0.01% have been turned into pawnbrokers or bookmakers.

Like property price variations, however, regional shop vacancy rates are evident.

Deloitte said the North West vacancy level stands at 32% whereas in London the figure is 18%.

Out-of-town shopping zones have apparently been hit hardest, in the downturn.

While the average high street vacancy rate across the country is 20%, it is 29% at shopping centres and 37% for retail parks.

The better high street re-occupancy rate is aided by lower refurbishment costs in comparison to large out-of-town locations.

Deloitte found that the average vacancy rate for the High Street is 20%, but it rises to 29% for shopping centres and 37% for retail parks.

"The results of this research are surprising and seem to challenge a number of myths around the state of the high Street," Deloitte director and report author, Hugo Clarke, said.

"They would suggest that far from being dead, the high street appears to be showing great resilience and a capacity for re-invention.

"It seems that a structural shift is taking place with the high street emerging as an unexpected winner."

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New Car Sales Accelerate By 18% In March

New car registrations were up almost 18% in March compared to the same period last year.

A total of 464,824 cars were registered in the month, the highest level for a decade - nearly 15,000 a day.

Last month's figure and the previous high, recorded in March 2004, were the two best registration periods since 1999 when the motor industry ditched the August new number plate for a twice-yearly system.

The sales speed-up in March has taken year-so-far sales to 688,122, a rise of 13.7% on the total for the first three months of 2013.

Trade body SMMT said the surge reflects a return to confidence to Britain.

"New car registrations surged 17.7% in March to 464,824 units, a surprisingly strong level of growth and a reflection of intensifying consumer confidence and the availability of great new products," SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said.

"Given the past six years of subdued economic performance across the UK, there is still a substantial margin of pent-up demand that is contributing to a strong new and used car market."

The month of March is the traditional registration high point, however the industry expects growth to continue.

"There has never been a better time to buy a new car thanks to attractive finance deals and advanced technologies that often make new cars cheaper to run," Mr Hawes said.

"We expect the market to continue to perform positively for the rest of the year, albeit at a more modest rate."

The best-selling car remains the Ford Fiesta, followed by the Focus stablemate and the Vauxhall Corsa.

VW Golf, Vauxhall Astra and Nissan Qashqai were the next best models, along with the VW Polo, Fiat 500, BMW 3 Series and Toyota Yaris.

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Cowdery Nets £200,000 Profit After FCA Fiasco

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

The founder of the closed life insurer Resolution has netted a profit of almost £200,000 on shares he bought after last week's botched launch of a probe into the sector by the City regulator.

Sky News can reveal that Clive Cowdery, one of the wealthiest and most prominent tycoons in the insurance industry, is sitting on the paper windfall after swooping for 1.2m shares last Friday.

He acquired the shares at an average of just under 274p, in the wake of a newspaper report that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) would be investigating millions of so-called "zombie" life insurance policies dating back to the 1980s.

The report wiped billions of pounds from the value of listed insurance companies, including Resolution, which saw its shares slump by as much as 16% at one point on Friday before recovering to close down 7%.

The partial recovery came after the FCA corrected some details of the newspaper report, but insurers were furious that it took the regulator more than six hours to issue the clarification.

Later on Friday, the watchdog issued a further statement to say that its board would be appointing a law firm to conduct an inquiry into the fiasco, which has also drawn the ire of George Osborne, the Chancellor.

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the Treasury Select Committee, has called the FCA's actions "an extraordinary blunder".

Mr Cowdery's share purchases last week were an indication of his belief in the continuing strength of Resolution, which will shortly be renamed Friends Life, according to people close to him.

The company announced last month that its founder would step down from the board at its annual meeting.

He is expected to establish another life insurance acquisition vehicle focused on Germany, Italy or the Netherlands next year, although he has said he remains interested in further opportunities in the UK.

An ally of Mr Cowdery said that his £200,000 gain on the shares he acquired for £3.3m last week was modest in the context of the sums he spends annually on his think tank, the Resolution Foundation.

Mr Cowdery, who now owns shares in Resolution worth roughly £28m, has fared far better from the recent share trades than his boardroom colleagues.

Andy Briggs, the company's chief executive, bought 47,000 shares at 313p ahead of last Friday's fall in Resolution's share price.

Tim Tookey, the finance director, acquired 20,000 shares at 315p on March 25 and a further 175,000 shares two days later at 320p.

Both men are nursing significant paper losses on those holdings although neither has any intention of selling the shares in the short term.

The insurance industry has been left reeling by both last Friday's FCA fiasco and Mr Osborne's Budget announcement that pensioners will no longer be effectively forced to buy an annuity.

A spokesman for Mr Cowdery and Resolution both declined to comment.

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Vodafone Creates 1,400 Jobs With 150 Stores

Vodafone has confirmed plans to open 150 new stores this year, creating 1,400 UK jobs.

The company said the £100m expansion was part of its previously announced £1bn investment commitment to the UK market.

Vodafone, which has 19 million customers in the country, had pledged in June last year to increase its UK expenditure by 50% as it fought strong competition from the likes of EE and O2.

Its capital investment programme, the company said, was one of the largest in its history and aimed at delivering Vodafone's commitment to provide indoor and outdoor coverage using 2G, 3G and 4G services to 98% of the UK population by 2015.

UK chief executive Jeroen Hoencamp said: This year we'll invest more than ever before to provide our customers with the strongest network and best services in the UK.

"We're also committed to putting our brand and our people where our customers want us: right at the heart of their high street and shopping centre."

Vodafone said the opening of the new stores would take the total number of Vodafone-branded UK outlets to more than 500.

It planned to open the first of the 150 stores in Notting Hill, Fulham, Walthamstow, Wembley, Ilford, Perry Barr and Bicester.

The announcement was welcomed by Prime Minister David Cameron.

He said in a statement: "It is a sign that our long-term economic plan to create jobs and build a stronger, more competitive economy is working."

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China Confirms 'Mini Stimulus' To Boost GDP

The Chinese government has announced measures to help boost living standards and its economy at the same time.

The total cost of the so-called 'mini stimulus' was not disclosed but the investment programme aimed to deliver social housing to replace shantytowns in many cities while railway construction would also be accelerated.

China's top economic official Li Keqiang said other measures included more tax breaks for small businesses.

There is pressure on the world's number two economy as it risks missing its GDP growth target of 7.5% for 2014, with official output surveys showing little sign of confidence picking up.

China has the world's longest high-speed rail line

The programme announced by Premier Li also showed that policymakers were highly reluctant to opt again for a strategy of massive spending and borrowing, such as the one unleashed following the financial crisis of 2008.

While the stimulus helped China's economy recover rapidly - with growth of more than a staggering 70% since 2008 - the resulting credit boom created a huge debt burden of 230% of GDP.

That debt mountain contributed to GDP growth slowing to a 14-year low of 7.7% in 2014 as spending was cut back.

Since becoming head of the ruling Communist Party in November 2012 and state president in March last year, President Xi Jinping has mounted an austerity campaign among top officials and a highly publicised crackdown on corruption that has seen some high-ranking officials sacked or charged.

China's huge export market has also been hit by factors outside its own control - namely the slow world economic recovery which dented demand for its products.

The targeted measures announced call for slum clearance to be accelerated with the China Development Bank, the country's biggest policy lender, issuing home financing bonds to help finance new social housing.

Western China has missed out on high speed rail investment

The authorities will also create a special fund worth up to 300 billion yuan (£29bn) annually to boost rail construction - a key policy aimed at reducing pollution from road traffic - with high speed bullet train lines also improving vital internal trade links.

China plans to build more than 4,000 miles of railway in 2014 alone.

The announcement represented a 25% increase in track extensions while the authorities also confirmed that western China would benefit from 80% of the investment.

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Network Rail Admits Punctuality Failures

Network Rail has said it is "disappointed" at not hitting its punctuality targets amid reports the firm is expected to receive a record fine for failing to ensure services run on time.

A spokesperson for the operator of Britain's rail infrastructure told Sky News: "Passengers are not currently experiencing the very high levels of train punctuality we had promised.

"While we have been successful in making our infrastructure more reliable, it hasn't been enough to offset the difficulties caused by excessive congestion or bouts of extreme weather.

"Missing our regulatory targets for punctuality is disappointing and our focus for the coming five year period is to restore record levels of performance and spend and invest some £38bn in our railways targeting the busiest parts of our network to relieve congestion and provide more trains, more seats and quicker, greener journeys."

According to the Sunday Telegraph, Network Rail is braced to be fined around £70m from the Office of Rail Regulation after admitting it has failed to ensure that Britain's trains run on time.

The company is expected to tell regulators on Monday that only 89.9% of trains are currently reaching their destination on time, or less than 10 minutes late.

Official targets say 92.5% should arrive on time.

Robin Gisby, Network Rail's managing director of network operations, told the Sunday Telegraph that growth in demand from passengers had spiralled beyond all expectations in recent years, leaving his organisation "playing catch up".

Projects planned and funded five years ago to improve punctuality by upgrading rail infrastructure and increasing capacity had been outstripped by the rise in passengers, he added.

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