British Business - May 24

The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

The Times

- The owner of Royal Mail, International Distributions Services IDS, took nearly seven hours to tell the stock market that it would not be able to publish its annual results as scheduled, after blaming its auditors at KPMG.

- The boss of Nationwide Building Society NBS has defended the customer-owned mutual's decision not to give its members a say on its 2.9 billion pounds ($3.68 billion) takeover of Virgin Money.

The Guardian

- National Grid NG. has tapped shareholders for nearly 7 billion pounds ($8.88 billion) to fund a 60 billion pounds spending spree to upgrade its networks to cope with the switch to low-carbon energy on either side of the Atlantic.

- The U.S food group Mondelez MDLZ has been fined 337.5 million euros ($364.84 million) for anti-competitive practices in the EU.

The Telegraph

- U.S. authorities have launched a legal effort to break up Ticketmaster after botched ticket sales for artists including Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen fuelled accusations of anti-competitive behaviour.

Sky News

- Medical Properties Trust is close to finalising a £650m deal to refinance debt secured against dozens of British hospitals.

- CVC Capital Partners and Universities Superannuation Scheme have engaged Rothschild to prepare an auction of the motorway service stations operator, Moto, they have jointly owned since 2015, for more than 2 billion pounds.

($1 = 0.7878 pounds)

($1 = 0.9251 euros)