News round up: HMV, Game, Royal Bank of Scotland, UK homeowners, Cobham, Aviva and Trinity Mirror.

HMV Group plc (LON:HMV), the embattled high street entertainment chain, says it will return to profit this year as it takes advantage of the collapse of rival Game Group plc (LON:GMG).

In a trading update to the City on Friday, HMV said that like-for-like sales were down 12.9% in the 17 weeks to 28 April and that it would make a loss of £16m for the financial year just ended. It blamed too few blockbuster CD and DVD releases in the three month run-up to Christmas. However the group said that it could return to profit this financial year and forecast it would make "at least £10m".

Analysts were expecting a £5m loss this year after a disastrous period for the retailer, but the collapse of rival Game proved a major boon for HMV chief executive Simon Fox and followed successful talks with major suppliers to provide more preferential terms for CDs and games. Game has since been rescued by a private equity group and 333 of its 610 shops saved, though the interruption to its business was significant, reports the Guardian.

Royal Bank of Scotland

Nationalised lender Royal Bank of Scotland is to repay the final tranche of notes issued under the government's Credit Guarantee Scheme (CGS) next week, after posting a profit of more than a billion pounds in the first quarter of 2012.

The group said that next week it will repay the final tranche of notes issued under the government's CGS; over the last three years RBS will have repaid £75 billion of funding under the CGS and the Special Liquidity Scheme. The capital position remains robust, with a Core Tier 1 ratio - a key measurement of a bank's balance sheet strength - of 10.8% and a Tier 1 leverage ratio of 16.3x.

UK homeowners

Wealth among Britain's homeowners will not return to pre-recession levels until 2019, as almost 1m highly indebted "zombie" households hold back recovery, a leading think tank has warned. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said the main drag on wealth in Britain would be house prices, which it forecast would fall by an average of 1.5% every year for the next five years, accounting for inflation.

The warning came as Nationwide said on Thursday that average house prices fell by 0.2% in April to £164,134, following a 1% fall in March. It was the fourth fall in five months, and prices were 0.9% lower compared with April 2011, The Telegraph says.

Cobham

British satellite technology chiefs are pledging to bring something of Cobham to the state of Denmark. The defence and aerospace supplier has landed a satellite antennae rival, Thrane & Thrane, after a short-lived takeover battle. The acquisition, which has the recommendation of the Thrane board, presents an enlarged Cobham satellite communications threat to industry giants such as Honeywell of the United States.

Cobham raised its offer to DKr435 (£47.50) a share from DKr420, valuing Thrane & Thrane at £275m. The British company won over Lars Thrane, the Danish group’s co-founder and its most significant shareholder with a 22% stake, with a promise that future business would come to Copenhagen and not be taken away, says The Times.

Aviva

The board of Aviva must have thought that chief executive Andrew Moss had taken the sting out of a looming showdown with investors when he agreed to waive a near-5% pay rise. It wasn’t to be, and another annual meeting has been used by shareholders to vent their anger over executive pay. No sooner had the Aviva vote come through than Swiss bank UBS and Premier Foods also felt the backlash from disgruntled investors.

Then came the bombshell that Sly Bailey was stepping down at Trinity Mirror, another casualty in the pay battle. Following so soon after last Friday’s revolt over Barclays’ pay plans, the issue is clearly building up a head of steam. Although it could push ahead with its current plans, Aviva’s board is expected to re-visit its pay policy and come up with new plans, The Scotsman reports.

Trinity Mirror

A shareholder revolt has prompted Sly Bailey to quit Trinity Mirror amid unrest over her pay package. The chief executive announced her decision a week before the newspaper publisher’s annual meeting, at which many shareholders are expected to vote against its remuneration report.

Critics argue that Ms Bailey, 50, is paid too much given the company’s dwindling size and performance, a view that several shareholders are believed to have expressed to the board. Over her nine years as head of Trinity Mirror, which publishes the Daily Mirror, she has been paid £12.7m despite the group’s share price falling by more than 90%, The Times reports.