Businesses in the North and Midlands stand to lose a “staggering” £2.3bn because of the Government’s two-year deferment of the business rates revaluation, according to The Telegraph.

Retailers will be hit hardest, accounting for 46% of the loss, as they are paying unfairly high business rates based on pre-recession 2008 data when many were on top-of-the-market rents. Analysts from property consultancy Bilfinger GVA have calculated the effects of a 2015 rates revaluation for England, had it taken place as planned on the original April 1 deadline, and compared it with what businesses will have to pay in rates over the course of the deferred period.

“Anger flares at bosses’ bumper pay packages”, according to the Daily Mail after The Grocer revealed yesterday that Reckitt Benckiser CEO Rakesh Kapoor took home £11.2million last year – a rise of 64% despite shareholder protests at its 2014 AGM. Liberal Democrat peer Lord Thurso said: “No one is worth this amount of money whatever they do. The system of top executive pay is rotten – there needs to be a proper relationship between risk and reward.” (The Daily Mail)

Elsewhere, it’s a fairly quiet morning for the grocery industry, with most the retail media’s attention on B&Q, which could disappear entirely after new its new chief executive culled a sixth of its stores (The Telegraph). The Guardian notes that DIY has “fallen out of fashion” as consumer habits have “changed markedly since TV shows like Changing Rooms and Ground Force were on primetime TV”. A slightly more left-field take is that the decline of B&Q is apparently a “hammer blow” for lesbians as it has “long been integral to lesbian culture” (The Guardian).

Also away from grocery retail, there’s plenty of attention on the merger between fashion retailers Yoox and Net-a-Porter, which have combined sales of €1.3bn (The Financial Times).

Yesterday’s better than expected GDP growth figures in the fourth quarter means that the “UK economy grew at fastest rate for nine years in 2014” (The Telegraph)

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