Monday newspaper round-up: Drax, Royal Mail, Ovo Energy

(Sharecast News) - Drax power plant has continued to burn 250-year-old trees sourced from some of Canada's oldest forests despite growing scrutiny of its sustainability claims, forestry experts say. A new report suggests it is "highly likely" that Britain's biggest power plant sourced some wood from ecologically valuable forests as recently as this summer. Drax, Britain's single biggest source of carbon emissions, has received billions of pounds in subsidies from burning biomass derived largely from wood. - Guardian Royal Mail says that it has "delivered Christmas" for more than 500 years, but this year many workers have been left feeling less than festive after the company downgraded a small gift to workers to second class. The postal service, which traces its history back to the appointment of a "master of the posts" by Henry VIII in 1516, has given workers a collection of 50 Christmas stamps to recognise their work over the busiest time of year. In previous years, including in 2024, workers have received a book of 50 or 100 first-class stamps, but that has quietly been switched to second class this year. - Guardian

Donald Trump has vowed to pay a $2,000 (£1,520) "tariff dividend" to American households in a radical stimulus package that could trigger a stock market boom. The US president claimed he could reward households because America was making trillions of dollars from his trade war, which has led to sweeping tariffs being imposed on countries around the world. - Telegraph

Ovo Energy is preparing to slash tens of millions of pounds in costs under a radical plan to secure its survival. In a bid to convince the regulator of its financial viability, Britain's fourth-largest gas and electricity supplier is plotting deep spending cuts to areas including advertising and brand building activities. The cuts come as Stephen Fitzpatrick, Ovo's founder, scrambles to meet tougher financial rules imposed by Ofgem. - Telegraph

The head of Lazard's investment-banking arm in the UK is predicting a wave of large and midsized stock market debuts in London next year, as companies grow too big to stay in private equity hands and the fashion for Wall Street listings fades. Cyrus Kapadia told The Times that London was "the natural destination" for a number of very large private equity-owned businesses in the market value range of more than $10 billion. - The Times

One in six employers expect artificial intelligence to reduce the size of their workforce over the next year, amid weak employer confidence, according to new research. In the latest sign of the threat to white-collar workers posed by the advance of artificial intelligence, 62 per cent of those employers believed that clerical, junior managerial, professional or administrative roles were most likely to be lost because of the technology. - The Times