Friday newspaper round-up: Co-op ad, British Gas, Tata Steel

(Sharecast News) - Publicans have called on the Co-op to pull a "disgraceful" TV advert that urges the supermarket's customers to watch the Euro 2024 football tournament at home rather than going to the pub. The Co-op Food ad says it is hard to see the TV screen in the pub and suggests customers instead "stay in" and take advantage of a beer and pizza deal the supermarket is promoting. - Guardian British electricity prices were double those paid in France and Spain in the spring, with the steel industry saying the disadvantage could hinder UK efforts to switch to greener technology. UK companies paid nearly £66 per megawatt hour (MWh) for wholesale electricity in the second quarter of 2024, well over double the French and Spanish equivalents in the same period, according to analysis of industry data by the lobby group UK Steel. - Guardian

British Gas has filed a record number of winding-up petitions against small businesses, threatening to tip restaurants and care homes into bankruptcy. British Gas Trading sought winding-up orders against 111 companies in 2023 and a further 60 were filed so far this year. It marks a significant increase on previous years, with just 38 filed in 2022 and 13 in 2021. - Telegraph

Tata Steel has snubbed unions and closed one of two blast furnaces at its biggest plant under plans to switch to a greener form of production. The company said it had ceased operations of blast furnace 5 in Port Talbot, south Wales, as part of its restructuring programme to stem "unsustainable" losses of more than £1 million a day. The decommissioning of the blast furnace and associated facilities started immediately after the last liquid iron had been produced. The second blast furnace is due to be shut down in September. - The Times

Two of the biggest hitters in private equity, KKR and CVC, are among the bidders to have put forward offers of more than €3 billion for B&B Hotels. Goldman Sachs' investment division, which is looking to offload the hotels chain, is understood to have received a handful of proposals pitched between €3.2 billion and €3.3 billion. - The Times