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Thursday newspaper round-up: BHS, Carillion, Deloitte
The former BHS owner Dominic Chappell has told a court that workers were seen shredding bin bags of documents prior to his purchase of Sir Philip Green's doomed high street chain in 2015. Chappell, 51, said the staff tipped the bags into an "industrial-sized" shredder, which was located in a lorry or a van in the car park of the Arcadia-run BHS offices in London. - Guardian
The longest spell of rising output from Britain's factories in 23 years has left the economy on course to record its fastest rate of growth since late 2016, one of the country's leading thinktanks has forecast. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research said it was pencilling in expansion in gross domestic product of 0.6% in the final quarter of 2017, up from 0.4% in the previous three months and above the latest City estimates. - Guardian
The Government has drawn up contingency plans for Carillion's collapse, it admitted on Wednesday, as investors await news of the outcome of crunch talks between the contractor and lenders over its future. Cabinet Office parliamentary secretary Oliver Dowden said: "We of course make contingency plans for all eventualities ... Carillion is a major supplier to the Government with a number of long-term contracts." - Telegraph
The Murdoch tabloids reduced their losses last year thanks to a deal with the taxman, but still spilt plenty of red ink as The Sun struggled to find its role in the digital world. News Group Newspapers, the holding company for The Sun and Sun on Sunday, reported a pre-tax loss of £24m, down from £63m. - Telegraph
Deloitte is to convert part of its British practice into a law firm in a move that will increase competitive pressures in an already crowded legal services market. The move will mean that all of the accounting industry's Big Four will be licensed as law firms in England and Wales as they take advantage of ten-year-old legislation that overhauled the rules governing the ownership of legal practices. - The Times
The government should have the power to levy council tax on building sites straight after a developer gets planning permission, a former Cabinet Office minister has suggested, claiming that it would help to speed up the supply of new homes. John Penrose, a Conservative MP and co-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on housing and planning, has written a letter to Sajid Javid, the housing secretary, to ask him to change how construction companies are taxed. He said that housebuilders did not have enough incentive to speed up their output, so should face a council tax on any unused land. - The Times