India’s Reliance Industries and Apollo, the private equity firm, have become the frontrunners to buy Boots after the Issa brothers indicated that they were not prepared to pay the asking price. (The Times £)

Just Eat Takeaway’s sale of Grubhub has been thrown into disarray as bosses prepare for a multibillion-pound writedown on the US business in what could go down as one of the tech sector’s most disastrous deals. (The Times £)

Sainsbury’s boss Simon Roberts has warned that the cost of living crisis will get worse before it gets better. The chief executive said customers were facing the ‘toughest of times’, adding: “The effects of this are going to last longer than I am sure most people expected months ago”. (The Daily Mail)

Sainsbury’s faces a backlash when it meets shareholders in six weeks after their negotiations over staff pay guarantees broke down. ShareAction, which leads a coalition of ten institutional investors including HSBC, wants Sainsbury’s to become a permanent Living Wage employer by July 2023. (The Daily Mail)

When departing M&S boss Steve Rowe took over from Marc Bolland in 2016 he told the City his first priority was “putting out fires”. Investors sneered that M&S was a neverending transformation story. Last week, however, Rowe was able to bow out having restored the business to the black. Signs of life in its clothing business meant he could claim that M&S was “fundamentally changed”. (The Times £)

The National Lottery could be suspended for the first time in its 28-year history in a row over ownership. The Gambling Commission said in submissions to the High Court that a legal challenge by Camelot, its current operator, against the loss of its licence to Czech rival Allwyn could delay the handover, which is planned for February 2024. (The Daily Mail)

What’s going wrong at the Co-Op, asks The Times following a bumpy succession and £50m cost cutting. “The supply chain crisis and the messy implementation of a new software system have combined to hammer the Co-op’s profits and drain its cash reserves.” (The Times £)

Deliveroo’s stock market slide continued after JP Morgan issued a bearish broker note. Marcus Diebel, an analyst at the US bank, said that although the food delivery group had a healthy balance sheet and a net cash position of £1.1 billion, its name “scans unfavourably” given its lack of profitability. (The Times £)

The float of Haleon, the consumer health business being spun out of GSK next month, will be the biggest in London since commodities group Glencore listed more than a decade ago. But the break-up of the pharmaceuticals flagship is more than just another big City deal. Its success, or otherwise, will affect the UK’s ambitions to be a life-sciences powerhouse, for national research and development capability and for levelling up. (The Daily Mail)

Rishi Sunak has been warned that proposals for an online sales levy amount to a “shopping tax” that would deepen the cost-of-living crisis and “hurt, not help, the high street”. (The Telegraph)

Average petrol prices have reached a new record high of 171.1p a litre, new figures show. The average price for diesel reached 181.6p a litre on Thursday, according to data firm Experian Catalist - another record. (Sky News)

As the global elite gathered for the World Economic Forum this week, various multilateral organisations and governments have warned of what could become the worst food emergency in decades. The war in Ukraine has ground agricultural commodity exports from the country to a virtual halt, and has come on top of deteriorating food security caused by droughts and the pandemic. (The Financial Times £)

How Reckitt stepped up to fight the US baby formula shortage. Having faced the Covid rush on Dettol, the British giant’s factories are flat out again in another health crisis. (The Times £)

Bordeaux’s winemakers are divided over calls for the European Union to pay them to rip up their vines to curb a glut of unsold claret. (The Times £)

Animal rights activists have scaled the roof of a national beef industry event in protest against the meat industry. The demonstration, which began in the early hours of Saturday, is said to have resulted in one protester being taken to hospital after chaos unfolded outside Darlington Farmers Auction Mart in County Durham. (The Guardian)

The FT’s sister publication Investors’ Chronicle advises investors to buy Pets at Home shares as spending on pets is expected to be resilient despite the worsening consumer backdrop, while suggesting the hold Marks & Spencer as the high street chain has recovered well, but now faces an inflationary episode. (The Financial Times £)

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