ROYAL Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group will face shareholders amid mounting speculation over Government plans for the preelection sell-off of taxpayer stakes.

The 81 per cent stateowned bank has reported its best quarterly performance since 2011, swinging out of the red with pre-tax profits of £826m in the first three months of the year.

Lloyds has also fuelled talk of Government plans to offload shareholdings after its first quarter figures likewise showed further progress.

* More sales cheer is on the cards from PC World and Currys parent Dixons Retail as it continues to benefit from the demise of rival Comet and a booming tablet computer market.

Dixons has nearly 500 UK shops and plans to reduce its estate to about 400 outlets.

* Enterprise Inns, the UK’s biggest pub landlord, reports interim results tomorrow after a weather-beaten first half and the collapse of its wines and spirits distributor.

The Solihull- based group revealed a £1.5m hit to net income from January’s snowfall and analysts fear the second quarter would have been further impacted by the freezing early spring weather.

Enterprise has more than 6,000 leasehold and tenanted pubs in the UK, but wants to reduce the size of the estate to 5,200 over the next three years and spend £180m on remaining pubs.

* Half-year figures from catering firm Compass come after it was dragged into the horse meat scandal when it admitted sites where it operated – including two secondary schools – had been supplied with burgers from an Irish processor involved in the crisis.

* Britons escaping the UK’s weather misery should help budget airline easyjet cut halfyear losses. The carrier, a recent entrant to the FTSE 100 Index, has shrugged off higher fuel costs, the weak pound and squeezed consumer spending to continue growing in the six months to the end of March.

* The City will be looking for better news from insurance firm Aviva on Thursday. It endured a bruising annual meeting with investors after 13 per cent of votes failed to back the its pay plans amid anger over losses and executive remuneration.

The group slashed its full-year dividend by 44 per cent after reporting a loss after tax of £3bn in full-year results.

THE following events will take place this week:

Today
Trading update: Johnston Press; Centrica AGM.

Tomorrow
Finals: Babcock International; British Land. Interims: Enterprise Inns. Trading updates: Capita; Paddy Power, Sportech; Royal Bank of Scotland; Standard Life; RICS housing market survey; CML lending figures for March.

Wednesday
Finals: Land Securities; London Stock Exchange; Speedy Hire. Interims: Compass; easyJet. Trading update: ITV; RSA Insurance. Bank of England publishes quarterly inflation and growth forecasts. ONS unemployment figures.

Thursday
Finals: Invensys; National Grid; Shanks; Stobart; TalkTalk Telecom. Interims: Asda, Marston’s. Trading updates: Aviva; Dixons Retail; SIG; Three; Travis Perkins; Trinity Mirror; Lloyds Banking Group; Prudential.

Friday
Trading update: Premier Farnell.