Tuesday newspaper round-up: JLR, Elon Musk, rental properties

(Sharecast News) - Jaguar Land Rover would have considered moving car production out of the UK and slashing jobs if not for a £380m subsidy for its sister battery company, government officials claimed privately. Officials at the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) warned in December that Britain's largest automotive employer may have triggered an exodus from the UK car industry, according to state aid documents prepared by the competition regulator. - Guardian Elon Musk settled the US Securities and Exchange Commission's civil lawsuit accusing the world's richest person of waiting too long in 2022 to disclose his initial purchases of stock in Twitter, now known as X. A trust in Musk's name will pay a $1.5m civil penalty, without admitting wrongdoing. Musk won't have to give up any money he allegedly saved from the delay. The settlement was disclosed on Monday in the Washington DC federal court. - Guardian

The war in Iran is set to push a further 200,000 households into poverty, top economists have warned. Rising energy bills, petrol prices and food costs will all put pressure on family finances, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr). At the same time, an economic slowdown will undermine pay growth and lead to a rise in unemployment, reducing incomes and worsening living standards across the economy, particularly for the poorest households. - Telegraph

Labour's assault on landlords has been met with a plunge in rental homes in London, with a fifth fewer properties on the market. The number of homes advertised to rent in the capital in the first three months of this year has fallen by 21.7pc compared with two years ago, just before Labour came to power. - Telegraph

Europe's largest bank has warned that it expects the US-Iran war to lead to higher credit losses as it set aside $400 million to cover a "fraud-related" loss at its UK investment bank. The warning came as HSBC reported that first-quarter profit slipped to $9.4 billion, down from $9.5 billion a year earlier. Analysts had forecast a profit of $9.59 billion. - The Times

The American video game retailer at the heart of the so-called meme stock trading frenzy during the Covid pandemic has made an audacious $55.5 billion takeover bid for eBay. Shares in eBay rose by more than 5 per cent in New York on Monday after GameStop announced an unsolicited cash-and-stock offer of $125-a-share for the much bigger ecommerce business, which said it was reviewing the bid, including its suitor's ability "to deliver a binding, actionable proposal". - The Times