Sunday Summary

A selection of business stories from the Sunday papers:

A putative bid for Northern Rock by Luqman Arnold, the former boss of Abbey, is being backed by funds from a clutch of Middle Eastern investors. Other reports suggest that two American private equity funds, Cerberus and Five Mile, are looking to take an equity stake in Northern Rock as part of a rescue package for the stricken mortgage bank.

The French government has sounded out the country's two largest banks, Crédit Agricole and BNP Paribas, to find out if they would be prepared to launch a break-up bid for Société Générale, which last week admitted that it was the victim of a massive fraud, costing it £3.7bn.

Powerful funds backed by the Qatari government are considering assembling a significant stake in Credit Suisse, one of Europe's largest banks.

As many as 20,000 City jobs are likely to be wiped out by the financial crisis, according to one of the first comprehensive forecasts of the toll on London's economy.

Latest figures for high-street spending over Christmas and New Year will reveal the extent of the slowdown on Britain's high streets, putting pressure on the authorities to cut interest rates. 

Tax avoidance by the super-rich costs the British taxpayer £13bn a year - enough money to increase old-age pensions by 20 per cent. The first ever forensic study of Revenue figures to establish the true scale of tax avoidance by some of the wealthiest people in Britain will pile pressure on the government to prevent the tax burden falling disproportionately on ordinary working people.