Market Buzz
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Prepayment meters, rail services, BAE Systems
British households on prepayment meters face missing out on up to £130m of support for their energy bills if they fail to redeem government vouchers before they expire in a month’s time. Under the energy bills support scheme, which runs until 30 June, all households are entitled to discounts of up to £400 on their bills. – Guardian.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: House sales, Amazon, energy suppliers
More prospective house sellers are returning to the UK’s property market, pushing agreed home sales to their highest point of the year in May, according to Zoopla, although it warned that the rebound in activity could be knocked by rising mortgage rates. House prices have fallen by 1. 3% nationally over the past six months, the property website found, but the speed of price falls has been decreasing as buyer confidence slowly improves. – Guardian.
Sunday newspaper round-up: Debt deal, Rolls-Royce, supermarkets
The legislation needed to implement the debt deal agreed between president Joe Biden and House speaker Kevin McCarthy is being urgently worked on so that it can be put to a vote in Congress. Lawmakers were expected to be given the details of the agreement on Sunday with McCarthy aiming for it to be brought to the floor of the House on Wednesday. Biden was nevertheless confident that the deal would pass in Congress. - Guardian .
Friday newspaper round-up: Boohoo, Asda, Eli Lilly
The founders of fast fashion retailer Boohoo. com doubled their pay to about £1m each last year as they were handed hefty bonuses despite missing financial targets. Directors decided that both Carol Kane and Mahmud Kamani deserved bonuses equivalent to their annual basic salary – instead of the 30% they had been due to receive after missing sales and underlying profit targets. – Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Microsoft, energy price cap, benefits
Microsoft has filed an appeal against the UK competition watchdog’s decision to block its $69bn (£56bn) acquisition of the Call of Duty creator Activision Blizzard. The US tech company confirmed that it had formally lodged an appeal against the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) verdict against the deal last month. Its case will be argued before the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). – Guardian.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Virgin Orbit, Tesla, Cazoo
Virgin Orbit, the satellite launch company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, will permanently cease operations, just months after a major mission failure. The California-based firm, which had already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States in early April, has auctioned off its main assets, recovering just over $36m. That figure is barely 1% of the value the company reached in late 2021 on Wall Street, when it was valued at $3.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Private renters, TikTok, Mulberry
Private renters are almost twice as likely to be struggling with problem levels of debt than the general population, with a sharp rise in the numbers in serious financial difficulty since January, research shows. The figures come against a backdrop of private rents in the UK hitting record highs, and days after the government announced a shake-up of the sector to tackle the “injustices” that many tenants are facing. – Guardian.
Monday newspaper round-up: Entain, rail tickets, Rolls-Royce
The owner of Ladbrokes, Entain, has been accused of “dishonest” lobbying after it funded an operation mobilising people to complain to their MP about proposals to change gambling laws. The government last month unveiled plans for tighter regulation, including measures it said would make gambling safer but would also reduce revenue for brands such as Coral and PartyCasino, owned by Entain. – Guardian.
Sunday newspaper round-up: The Restaurant Group, Severn Trent, Facebook
The Restaurant Group, owner of the Wagamama chain, is under increasing pressure to break up after TMR Capital proposed last week to management that it sell all its brands save that one. TMR was the fourth activist shareholder to make the case for change. Under the plans presented by TMR, Restaurant group should then focus on expanding the chain before going private via a sale. The clash on strategy comes amid a surge in the cost of ingredients, energy and salaries.
Friday newspaper round-up: Asda, Revolut, Restaurant Group
The organic vegetable box company Riverford is to become 100% owned by its staff after its founder, Guy Singh-Watson, agreed to sell his remaining 23% stake for almost £10m. Singh-Watson, who sold nearly three-quarters of the company to employees in 2018, will take a £9. 8m payment over five years and immediately hand full control to a trust on behalf of its 900 staff who each receive an annual profit share and participate in the running of the business. – Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Water companies, Walgreens, Deutsche Bank
Water companies have apologised for repeated sewage spills and pledged to invest £10bn this decade in an attempt to quell public anger over pollution in seas and rivers. The companies will triple their existing investment plans to plough funds into the biggest modernisation of sewers “since the Victorian era” to reduce spills of overflowing sewage into England’s waterways. – Guardian.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Crypto trading, Capita, executive pay
Britons have packed away enough possessions to fill Buckingham Palace more than 60 times over as the housing crisis, enduring consumerism and a sentimental reluctance to let go of inanimate objects means self-storage is now on the brink of becoming a £1bn-a-year business. Self-storage units are proving cheaper than renting or buying a bigger home and are springing up alongside new housing developments across the UK, with at least 280 more stores planned between now and 2026 – a more than 10% increase.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Higher-rate taxpayers, low-carbon projects, John Lewis
One in four teachers and one in eight nurses will be higher-rate taxpayers by 2027 as a result of the government’s record freeze on income tax allowances and thresholds, according to a leading thinktank. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said better-paid public sector workers will be among the almost 8 million people – one in five of all taxpayers – who will pay income tax at 40% or above as result of the Treasury’s attempt to reduce the UK’s budget deficit.
Monday newspaper round-up: Turkey election, inflation, cannabis, Isle of Man, licence fee
Record high turnout in a tightly fought election has presented the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with the greatest challenge to his leadership in two decades, with signs that the vote was heading for a runoff even as Erdoğan attempted to claim victory before an official vote count had ended. Speaking to a jubilant crowd of supporters, an energised and delighted Erdoğan declared: “The fact that the election results have not yet been finalised does not diminish the fact that our nation’s choice is clearly in favour of us.
Sunday newspaper round-up: Tesco, National Grid, Morrisons
Tesco's pension fund lost £9bn in value and fell into a deficit after multiple safe investments went sour. In particular, the fund is heavily exposed to so-called Liability Driven Investments. Those LDIs came unstuck in 2022 following a sharp rise in interest rates that left pension funds nursing heavy losses. Yet the grocer had no plans to pay more into the pension plan with a spokesman saying that the scheme was "in a strong position", "well-funded" and employing a different measure for estimating contributions then it was in fact "in surplus".
Friday newspaper round-up: Grocery inflation, income tax, rail strikes, landlord rules
Supermarkets have told ministers that food prices have peaked and will start falling significantly in the coming months. The Treasury held a call with leading supermarkets after Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, blamed the “very big underlying shock” for stubbornly high inflation. - The Times.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Inflation, Post Office, public sector
Rishi Sunak is at risk of missing his flagship target to halve inflation this year, one of Britain’s leading economic forecasters has warned, as households are left thousands of pounds worse off amid the cost of living crisis. Sounding the alarm over the hit to living standards, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said the soaring price of food and other basic essentials meant inflation was on track to remain persistently high for the rest of this year.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: John Lewis, Vodafone, Asos
The boss of John Lewis will face a confidence vote by staff members on Wednesday as the business considers the option of bringing in outside investment in a change that could threaten the decades-old employee-owned model. Chairman Sharon White is considering radical ways to bring in up to £2bn to help secure the future of the John Lewis Partnership, including diversifying into building flats for rent above shops, after reporting hefty losses from its chain of department stores and Waitrose supermarkets.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Retail sales, Royal Mail, energy suppliers, Mango
Consumers are cutting back on purchases amid growing pressure on the Bank of England to tame inflation. Retail sales increased 5. 2% on a like-for-like basis in April compared with the same period a year earlier, according to data from the British Retail Consortium and the consultancy KPMG. – Guardian .
Friday newspaper round-up: Train strikes, Apple, Boohoo
The UK and US have intervened in the race to develop ever more powerful artificial intelligence technology, as the British competition watchdog launched a review of the sector and the White House advised tech firms of their fundamental responsibility to develop safe products. Regulators are under mounting pressure to intervene, as the emergence of AI-powered language generators such as ChatGPT raises concerns about the potential spread of misinformation, a rise in fraud and the impact on the jobs market, with Elon Musk among nearly 30,000 signatories to a letter published last month urging a pause in significant projects.