The mutual needs to raise as much as �1.8bn to repair its bank's balance sheet and said on Friday that it was �undertaking an extensive review� of the business.

HSBC chairman Douglas Flint publicly apologised to shareholders yesterday for the bank's failings after it was fined �1.3 billion in December following a probe into its Mexican and stateside operations.

The BBC has suspended its chief technology officer and admitted wasting nearly �100m on a five-year project intended to make the corporation "tapeless", saying that to continue with the project would be "throwing good money after bad".

SSE and RWE npower have been given the go-ahead for a �1 billion offshore wind farm. Galloper, a 50:50 joint venture between the two utilities, has received development consent from the UK government for the 140-turbine site 16 miles off the Suffolk coast.

KKR & Co. (KKR) and Silver Lake Management LLC are vying with Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) to acquire Hulu LLC, escalating a bidding war that has attracted cable and satellite TV, private equity, a talent agency and media mogul Peter Chernin.

Households paid off �241m more mortgage debt than they borrowed in an effort to get on top of their debts. Before May last year, net lending had never been negative since the BBA started collecting the data in 1997.

Ms Lagarde, French finance minister at that time, now appears unlikely to be brought to trial in the case, lifting a cloud that had gathered over her position as leader of one of the world's top international institutions.

CALLS are growing for a public inquiry into failures to clean up coal mines across Scotland after a new report revealed a potential �60m shortfall in funds for one region alone.

Paul Fishe: 'I don't want to get into the American position of saying it is indefinite and then stopping'. Picture: Contributed.

Britain came within six hours of running out of natural gas in March, according to a senior energy official, highlighting the risk of supply shortages amid declining domestic production and a growing reliance on imports.