Friday newspaper round-up: THG, Swiss Re, Frasers Group

(Sharecast News) - Warrington council lent the billionaire owner of The Hut Group (THG) £151m after the online retailer's £5bn market listing. The Cheshire local authority extended a £200m loan facility to a company controlled by Matt Moulding in October, one of the largest council loans on record, from which it has taken three drawdowns totalling more than £151m. - Guardian Pay for HGV drivers jumped by more than a tenth in just five months as the industry struggles with severe worker shortages that are straining Britain's supply chains. The "staggering" rise from February to July, shown in figures from jobs site Indeed, is almost double the rate of increase across all driving jobs. The increase is more than 13 times the 0.8pc average rise across all jobs during the period. - Telegraph

Reinsurance giant Swiss Re has agreed to pay $10m (£7.3m) to reduce its carbon footprint by sucking CO2 out of the air in what the company says is the first deal of its kind. The 10-year contract with Switzerland's direct-air-capture (DAC) start-up Climeworks will help Swiss Re achieve its goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2030, the company said. - Telegraph

Peer-to-peer lenders have been told to improve contingency plans for winding down their services or they will be banned from writing new loans. The intervention by the City regulator comes after a series of chaotic collapses in the sector that have led to the loss of tens of millions of pounds of retail investors' money. - The Times

A new pay package worth up to £100 million in shares for the incoming chief executive of Mike Ashley's Frasers Group has received a mixed reaction from shareholders and company remuneration advisers. Michael Murray, 31, who is the fiancé of Ashley's daughter, is set to receive the award if the retailer's shares achieve a target price of £15 for 30 consecutive trading days before October 7, 2025. Murray would receive a base salary of £1 million a year. - The Times