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A row's erupted after French state-owned rail operator SNCF launched a bid to run new high speed services from London to Birmingham. It joined forces with Virgin Trains to enter the competition for the West Coast Partnership franchise, which will include services on the existing West Coast route from 2019 and initial HS2 trains between the capital and West Midlands from 2026.

With polls suggesting the pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron will emerge as the comfortable winner over the far-right Marine Le Pen in the final run-off election in France, bondholders have begun snapping up French assets once again. For more, Sarah Lowther was joined by Mike Bell, Global Market Strategist at JP Morgan.

Today on the agenda, Georgie Frost and Kevin White, Director at Fortem Financial Management discussed how up to three million children in the UK are at risk because families can't afford to feed them during school holidays. Plus they look into why UK shoe repair and key-cutting business Timpson recruits new staff according to which Mr Men characters their personalities resemble. All these stories and more on The News Review.

The Guardian leads with the story that pro-EU campaign group Open Britain is urging voters to unseat prominent Brexit-supporting MPs, including Iain Duncan Smith, Theresa Villiers and Kate Hoey. Meanwhile, in the Telegraph, polls suggest the Conservatives are on course for a historic Commons majority of up to 150 seats.

Georgie and Nigel began the morning by going through the latest market headlines, starting with Whitbread - the UK's largest hospitality company, owning the likes of Costa Coffee. Elsewhere, we've heard from the UK's largest retailer of carpets - Carpetright. And there's a £10bn takeover of Christian Dior, which is dominating the retail business news this morning.

Northern Petroleum plc,an oil and gas company, is undertaking a redevelopment and production project in north west Alberta and has a broader portfolio of exploration and appraisal opportunities in countries of relatively low political risk, primarily Italy.

A court's heard that a teenager made about £360,000 by creating computer hacking software which cost universities, gaming websites and other businesses millions of pounds. 20 year old Adam Mudd from Hertfordshire, has already admitted offences under the Computer Misuse Act. But the report also acknowledges that teenagers are often looking to secure bragging rights with their friends, rather than for any more malevolent motive.

Alistair McQueen, Head of Savings and Retirement at Aviva, will be available this week to comment on the Graduate Labour Market Statistics on Tuesday 25th April, HMRC Flexible Payments from Pensions Data on Wednesday 26th April and HMRC Personal Income Statistics on Thursday 27th April.

There's a warning the UK's electrical infrastructure is not equipped for the rise in Electric Vehicle or EV use over the next decade. A report from the Green Alliance suggests peak demand for electricity could double before 2050, leading to so called brown outs or black outs if local grids are not actively managed.

British businesses have at least £498bn tied up in excess working capital, which could be used to boost cashflow and growth. A combination of revenue growth, which increases the amount of money tied up in unpaid invoices, and firms strategically building up their inventories ahead of anticipated price hikes, have increased pressure on businesses to have more working capital.