Oct 29 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
The Times
- JP McManus and John Magnier, the horse racing tycoons, and their business partner Dermot Desmond, Celtic FC's largest shareholder, have sold Barchester Healthcare, UK's largest operator of care homes, to American real estate investment trust Welltower WELL.N for 5.2 billion pounds ($6.98 billion).
- Hedge funds will be allowed to take anonymous "down bets" on UK company shares under proposed new rules published by the Financial Conduct Authority.
The Guardian
- The National Health Service has made the morning-after pill available for free across pharmacies in England in an effort to reduce a "postcode lottery" of access to emergency contraception.
- Ministers have agreed to give bankrupt Woking council an unprecedented 500 million-pound taxpayer bailout under government plans to merge a dozen local authorities in Surrey.
The Telegraph
- Wingtech 600745.SS, a Chinese technology company, took trade secrets from semiconductor plant in Stockport, Greater Manchester, owned by Dutch subsidiary Nexperia, as part of plans to move microchip production out of the country, according to reports in the Dutch media.
- Google GOOGL.O has been accused of promoting fake pension news to Britons after showing spam websites with misleading information at the top of its news feeds.
Sky News
- Pimco, the giant bond fund manager, has offloaded hundreds of millions of pounds of Thames Water debt as the crisis-hit utility limps towards a private sector rescue deal aimed at averting the threat of temporary nationalisation.
($1 = 0.7451 pounds)
(Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom)
((globalnewsmonitoring@thomsonreuters.com))