PRESS DIGEST-British Business - March 31

March 31 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

The Times

- Jim Ratcliffe's Ineos has skipped its dividend for the second consecutive year after its loss before tax widened to $593.1 million from $71.1 million, while warning investors it faces delays to the delivery of a plant in Belgium due to "volatility in global energy markets".

- Europe's leading AI provider Mistral has raised $830 million in new debt to buy 13,800 Nvidia NVDA.O chips for a major data centre near Paris, as Europe races to scale AI infrastructure to compete with the U.S. and China.

The Guardian

- The motor finance industry must pay around 9.1 billion pounds ($12.02 billion) to compensate UK motorists for unfair vehicle loans under the market regulator's trimmed, final bill for one of Britain's costliest financial mis-selling scandals.

- British Steel is on track to be fully nationalised within weeks, a year after the government took over the daily running of the loss-making business from its Chinese owner.

The Telegraph

- Startup Starcloud, founded by a British space entrepreneur, has secured $170 million to challenge Elon Musk's SpaceX in the race to develop orbital data centres.

Sky News

- The owner of Poundstretcher, one of Britain's largest discount retailers, is plotting store closures as part of a formal restructuring process.

The Independent

- Payments firm PayPoint PAYP.L plans to reorganise into four business units, incorporate its network services, merchant services, digital payments and open banking, and its Love2shop brand as part of an overhaul to cut business costs.

($1 = 0.7568 pounds)