Tuesday newspaper round-up: Vodafone, Toyota, Arm

(Sharecast News) - The US telecoms group chaired by "cable cowboy" John Malone has snapped up a stake in Vodafone in a bet on the UK company's revival - but has ruled out making a takeover bid. Liberty Global, which is an investor in ITV and Virgin Media O2, told investors on Monday it had acquired a 4.92% stake in Vodafone, saying it believed the shares were undervalued. - Guardian Hydrogen is to be pumped into Britain's main gas pipeline by 2025 as part of a scramble to ditch fossil fuels and move to net zero. Between 2pc and 5pc of the fuel flowing through the country's transmission network will be hydrogen in two years under plans drawn up by National Gas, which owns the pipelines. - Telegraph

Toyota is to accelerate its shift to electric vehicles as the world's biggest carmaker unveiled plans to launch a new battery-powered flagship model. Koji Sato, chief executive of Toyota, said "the timing is right" to invest in new manufacturing methods to make electric vehicles in the latest sign the manufacturer is backing away from its hydrogen ambitions. - Telegraph

The number of directors banned for abusing pandemic support schemes has more than doubled in the current financial year compared with the whole of the previous 12 months. Official figures from the government's Insolvency Service show that in the ten months from April last year to January, 312 director disqualifications were linked to misuse of Covid-19 financial programmes, such as the £47 billion bounce back loan scheme. - The Times

Arm is recruiting more people in the UK than in any other part of the world, bucking the trend of layoffs in the technology sector and a sign of the company's commitment to its global headquarters in Cambridge. The microchip designer is looking for 500 new employees and 350 of those roles are in its Cambridge, Manchester, Warwick and Sheffield locations. The jobs, from graduate level to more senior hires, include software and hardware engineers, safety engineers, analysts and apprentices. Founded in Cambridge, Arm is owned by SoftBank, the Japanese investment group. It creates the blueprint for microchips in products such as Apple's iPhones, customers pay an upfront licence fee for the design and an additional royalty every time a chip is created from it. - The Times