PRESS DIGEST - British Business =4

The Guardian

A&L CUTS MORTGAGE LENDING BY 4.5 BILLION POUNDS

Alliance & Leicester (ALLL.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday it was scaling back its mortgage lending by 10 percent, some 4.5 billion pounds, a demonstration of how significantly its business has been affected by the credit crunch. The bank's shares fell 10 percent to 458.75 pence as it announced a 400 million pound credit crunch loss for the first four months of the year, though only 192 million pounds of that will show up on the profit and loss account. The nearly 200 million pound writedown compares with just 185 million pounds for the whole of 2007. "[W]e are still walking a tightrope," said Chris Rhodes, finance director.

LONMIN IS FIRST BLUE CHIP TO OFFLOAD FINAL SALARY SCHEME

Lonmin (LMI.L: Quote, Profile, Research), the mining company, announced on Tuesday that it had transferred its final salary pension fund to a private insurance firm, becoming the first FTSE 100 company to do so. UK employees were told their 78 million pound fund had been passed to specialist pension fund insurer Paternoster, which will pay their retirement incomes. Paternoster said it would assume the risks previously borne by Lonmin and manage the accumulated final salary benefits of staff.

VT EXPECTS TO SIGN CARRIER DEAL WITHIN WEEKS

VT Group (VTG.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday it hoped to sign within weeks a long-awaited order from the Ministry of Defence for two aircraft carriers. The shipbuilding and support services group said in a statement that the MoD was "now in the final stages of its spending decision-planning and we are optimistic that an announcement will be made shortly". VT also reported full-year figures that showed turnover up 20 percent to 1.2 billion pounds and underlying profit slightly ahead of expectations at 89.1 million pounds. The dividend is being raised 11 percent to 13.1 pence a share. Prepared for Reuters by Durrants