Tuesday newspaper round-up: SVB, Country Garden, pensions

(Sharecast News) - SVB Financial Group and two top executives have been sued by shareholders over the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, as global stocks continued to suffer on Tuesday despite assurances from US president Joe Biden. The bank's shareholders accuse SVB Financial Group chief executive Greg Becker and chief financial officer Daniel Beck of concealing how rising interest rates would leave its Silicon Valley Bank unit "particularly susceptible" to a bank run. - Guardian China's top property developer expects to record a loss in 2022 - its first since the company went public in 2007 - in another blow for the country's embattled property sector. In a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange, Country Garden said that the losses for 2022 would amount to between 5.5bn yuan and 7.5bn yuan (£663.6m-£904.9m). In 2021 Country Garden's profits reached 26.8bn yuan. - Guardian

Jeremy Hunt is preparing to boost the tax-free allowance for pensions by more than half a million pounds as he battles the wave of early retirement that has squeezed growth. The so-called lifetime allowance (LTA) - which is the maximum amount of money workers can put in their pensions before they are taxed - is expected to be lifted from just over £1m in the Chancellor's maiden Budget. - Telegraph

Older people have not stopped working since the pandemic because of ill-health or to look after their grandchildren but because they can afford to retire early, a think tank has claimed. There are about 516,000 more economically inactive people in Britain now than there were before Covid, about 60 per cent of whom are aged between 50 and 64, according to the Centre for Policy Studies. - The T|imes

The government has been urged to invest in green technologies to create a "jobs engine" that could help the country to hit its net zero targets. Britain could create up to 1.6 million jobs over the next ten years if it emulates the United States and the European Union with a plan for investing in renewable energy sources and other green infrastructure, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research. - The Times