WELCOME to scotsman.com's Scottish Business Briefing. Every morning we bring you a comprehensive round-up of all news affecting business in Scotland today.

MANY of Princes Street's biggest stores are set to be bought over by billionaire retail tycoon Sir Philip Green.

THREE quarters of business people think companies are reluctant to expose the full extent of the financial downturn they are facing, new research has found.

A NEW shopping centre in the Lothians is set to be unveiled this week.

BRITANNIA today confirmed it is in talks with Co-Operative Financial Services over a possible future merger.

HOVIS owner Premier Foods has confirmed it is looking at ways of cutting its debt. A number of private equity groups have approached the company to discuss deals which would

BUSINESS activity across Scotland is continuing to fall, but the rate of decline is slowing.

PROPERTY firm Jones Lang LaSalle has been named as the top office agency team in Europe.

SCOTTISH companies are shedding jobs at the fastest rate in more than a decade, casting an even greater shadow over the economy north of the Border.

STEPHEN Hester, head of property giant British Land, is set to emerge as the new chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland in a regime change forced by the dramatic collapse

MOVES to create a "super- mutual" from the merger of the Co-op's financial services arm and the Britannia building society were revealed yesterday.

IT'S the romantic notion most readily associated with retirement. But for Leon Walker, the 55-year-old head of oil technology firm PGS EM, sailing off into the sunset is l

FRIENDS Provident chief executive Trevor Matthews is considering buying up HBOS's majority stake in wealth manager St James's Place Capital, weekend reports claimed.

CALEDUS, the Aberdeen-headquartered well construction firm, has opened its first Middle East base as it reveals it expects double-digit growth over the coming year.

A TRAINING and consultancy firm that specialises in financial services is bucking the credit crisis by opening a new base in Scotland.

TRAVELLING to Brussels and back in one day is not to be recommended, but that is what a group of journalists and several farmers did last Monday. The purpose of the trip from

NO-ONE can underestimate the scale and devastating impact that the meltdown in the financial markets and systems has had, and will have, on the UK and world economies. But ev

AGGREKO shares have plunged in recent weeks, but analysts believe the company could announce more profit upgrades when it updates the market on third-quarter trading on Thursd

MONEY MATTERS

SIR Fred Goodwin, the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, will put his future on the line this week in a bid to rescue the bank from a crisis that has seen £30bn wiped