A deal could pay out anything up to $14bn (£8bn) for Mr Abramovich and his associates. Russia’s state-controlled energy giant Gazprom appears close to buying Roman Abramovich’s oil interests as banking sources confirmed that the company was actively casting around for a multi-billion dollar acquisition loan. Sales at Somerfield stores started May in decline, but have moved into positive territory and, across the quarter, gained 0.3 per cent.. In the first quarter of Somerfield’s financial year, sales fell 5.7 per cent at Kwik Save, although sales improved over the summer. Thus far, there has been no formal offer and accordingly, the board is seeking to bring the process to a prompt conclusion.”Analysts at Numis were in no doubt that there was a “degree of frustration” in the company’s statement.The board’s comments came as Somerfield announced a 1.8 per cent drop in like-for-like sales in the three months to 20 August.Once again, it was its Kwik Save business that proved the biggest lag on sales. Baugur, the Icelandic retail investor, was also keen to table a bid, but has had to put any takeover ambitions on hold while some of its directors answer criminal charges at home.Somerfield said: “Since [March], there have been extensive discussions with a number of parties.

Patience among the board of Somerfield appears to be wearing thin after a statement from the company, which revealed that sales fell nearly 2 per cent over the three months to 20 August, said it wanted a “prompt conclusion” to the long-running auction process.
Possible suitors include the billionaire real-estate investor Robert Tchenguiz, who has teamed up with Apax Partners, and the real-estate developers Ian and Richard Livingstone, who are working in conjunction with Nomura.Mr Tchenguiz said in March that he may be interested in buying Somerfield for £1.1bn. Both Mr Sears and Ms Druyun were sentenced to prison after guilty pleas that ratcheted up the investigation of Boeing’s business practices.. The board of Somerfield said yesterday it wanted bidders to “put up or shut up” over whether they will make an offer for the supermarket chain as frustration with the sale process, which is in its seventh month, grows. The discussions are thought to centre on the possibility of the company agreeing to a deferred prosecution agreement.No high-ranking executives are expected to be prosecuted beyond Boeing’s former chief financial officer, Michael Sears, who previously admitted recruiting Air Force official Darleen Druyun for a $250,000-a-year Boeing job in violation of conflict-of-interest laws. The company has also been stripped of several important contracts.At $500m, the settlement would be the stiffest financial penalty imposed on a US defence contractor for alleged procurement violations.

The payment could help the company avoid a criminal indictment by the Department of Justice, which has been investigating Boeing over the two matters since 2003.
In what has become one of America’s most serious military-procurement scandals of the past two decades, two former high-ranking Boeing executives have already gone to prison and two chief executives have departed. Boeing may pay $500m (£270m) to settle charges that it stole trade secrets about Lockheed Martin’s rocket programme and also recruited a senior official when she was in charge of allocating multibillion-dollar contracts for the US airforce. Southern Africa has some of the world’s highest rates of HIV infection, with more than 30 per cent of the adult population believed to be HIV-positive, and aid agencies have said any funding would have to deal with the underlying economic and social causes of famine.Mr Egeland asked the oil-producing countries to set aside some of the profits they have made from high oil prices to help the areas affected.He said: “There are many countries in the Gulf and elsewhere who have received an enormous windfall from these oil prices We can save a life for a $1 a day.”. The crisis is expected to peak between November and February as food runs out.HIV/Aids has exacerbated the problem, because many farmers who caught the virus have been unable to work their lands. Oxfam began to distribute food in the hardest-hit areas this week, but says it needs much more.Several hundred thousand people in neighbouring Zambia, Mozambique, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Swaziland will also not have enough food over the next six months unless help is provided quickly. His claims were backed by the aid agency Oxfam, which said that up to 10 million people in southern Africa could face food shortages after the rains failed.
Ten days after the UN pleaded for funds, Mr Egeland told reporters: “We have received zero pledges for this appeal.”Malawi produced only 1.3 million tons of maize this year, although 2.1 million tons is needed to stave off famine.

Jan Egeland, the UN relief co-ordinator, said Malawi was in desperate need of $88m (£48m) in aid after suffering its worst harvest for a decade. The United Nations has appealed to Gulf states to dig into their pockets to help Africa after failing to receive support for an emergency appeal to save four million people in Malawi from starvation. But, speaking to al-Jazeera television, he acknowledged the violations were not enough to affect Mr Mubarak’s victory.When Mr Mubarak, 77, who has ruled Egypt for 24 years, won his fourth six-year term by referendum in 1999, the government said 79 per cent of registered voters took part.. On Thursday, Mr Nour demanded fresh elections because of the voting abuse allegations, but the commission – which reform-minded judges have accused of being dominated by the government – rejected the request.Mr Gomaa said his party would put together a list of the election violations it witnessed and present them to the commission. Hosni Mubarak has been officially declared the victor of Egypt’s first contested presidential elections, winning a fifth consecutive six-year term in office. Although the current President’s win was widely expected – he received 88.6 per cent of the votes cast – the low turnout figure was a surprise. Mamdouh Marei, the chairman of the Presidential Election Commission, announced that just 23 per cent of the 32 million registered voters took part.
The low participation reflected widespread scepticism among Egyptians over its government’s claims that the election opened the door to greater democratic reform – and apathy over a vote that Mr Mubarak was certain to win.Mr Marei, who is the top judge on Egypt’s highest court, said the vote was clean and that allegations of violations came out of “over-enthusiasm in a nascent experiment that will be the cornerstone in the construction of democracy”.Mr Mubarak’s main rival, Ayman Nour of the liberal Ghad (Tomorrow) Party, won 7.6 per cent of the vote and the Wafd Party candidate, Noaman Gomaa, was third with 2.9 per cent.Rights groups have complained of widespread voting abuses in the elections that were held on Wednesday, in which Mubarak faced nine rivals.