Market Buzz
Friday newspaper round-up: PwC, UK pension funds, wind farms
The consultancy PwC has told its employees it is going to begin tracking their working locations to ensure that all workers spend “a minimum of three days a week” in the office or at client sites. In a memo sent to its 26,000 UK employees, the big four accounting firm announced that it will start monitoring how often employees work from home in the same way it monitors how many chargeable hours they work. – Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: X, Marks & Spencer, Volvo
More than a quarter of advertisers are planning to cut spending on Elon Musk’s X over concerns about the social media platform’s content and trust in the information disseminated, according to new global research. Advertising revenue flowing to X has been in freefall since Musk bought the site, then known as Twitter, for $44bn (£38bn) in October 2022, claiming it had not lived up to its potential as a platform for “free speech”. – Guardian.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Councils, Apple, offshore wind farms
Spending on the UK live music sector and associated businesses has hit a record £6. 1bn as a wave of huge acts from Elton John to Beyoncé cashed in on the pent-up demand to attend shows in person. Live, the federation representing Britain’s live music industry, revealed that the sector’s contribution to the UK economy topped £6bn for the first time last year, as fans denied live experiences in the Covid pandemic rushed to snap up tickets. – Guardian.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Electric cars, Manchester, Mountain Warehouse
Campaigners have called on the chancellor to introduce a controversial pay-per-mile road charging scheme on electric cars, warning of a £5bn “black hole” in tax revenues from motoring. In a letter to Rachel Reeves, the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) urged her to reform vehicle taxes, with fuel duty poised to dwindle in the coming decade as petrol and diesel cars are phased out. – Guardian.
Monday newspaper round-up: Ride-hailing apps, ticket prices, Abercrombie & Kent
Uber and other ride-hailing apps should be forced to publish data on drivers’ workloads so that regulators can tackle exploitation and cut carbon emissions, campaigners argue. Analysis by the pressure group Worker Info Exchange suggests drivers for Uber and its smaller rivals may have missed out on more than £1. 2bn in wages and costs last year because of the way they are compensated. – Guardian.
Sunday newspaper round-up: Abercrombie & Kent, Bunzl, John Lewis
Abercrombie & Kent, based in Cheltenham, has started talks with bankers regarding an initial public offering in 18 to 24 months' time. The luxury travel agency's boss, Cristina Levis, thinks the flotation will help the outfit become the LVMH of luxury experiential travel. The company, however, is looking at pursuing a possible listing in New York instead of London. Luxury travel has continued to increase since the pandemic with dramatic growth in demand for destinations such as the Nordics or Japan.
Friday newspaper round-up: Train strikes, Lloyds, Reaction Engines
A series of weekend strikes by train drivers on LNER from Saturday has been called off, their trade union Aslef has announced. Passengers travelling between London and Edinburgh had faced the prospect of months of disruption after LNER drivers earlier this month announced 22 days of industrial action from the start of September until early November. On Thursday, Aslef said drivers had reached a resolution with LNER regarding the breaking of agreements. – Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Energy bills, Qantas, CrowdStrike
Ministers have committed to help households struggling with their gas and electricity bills this winter after energy industry bosses warned that consumer debt had climbed to more than £3bn. With Labour under fire for scrapping universal winter fuel payments to pensioners, ministers met energy industry bosses on Wednesday to discuss ways of supporting struggling households through the coming colder months. – Guardian.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Water companies, Hargreaves Lansdown, Klarna
Water companies will struggle to raise the billions of pounds needed to clear Britain’s waterways and fix its creaking infrastructure under the regulator’s plan to keep a lid on rising water bills, the industry will warn. The water sector’s trade association is expected to warn the industry regulator that its proposals to cap the steady rise in household bills by curbing water company spending may drive away the investors needed for a multibillion-pound overhaul of water infrastructure.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Barclays, Mike Lynch, IBM
Ministers have been urged to intervene to prevent businesses struggling with gas and electricity costs from going bust, as bills are forecast to be 70% higher next year than before the energy crisis. A typical small business such as a pub, restaurant or independent retailer is paying more than £5,000 extra a year on bills than before the energy crisis that began in 2021, research by the forecaster Cornwall Insight shared with the Guardian shows. – Guardian.
Sunday newspaper round-up: Hezbollah, Economic pain, Wealth tax
Approximately 100 Israeli fighter jets launched strikes on around 270 targets located in over 40 southern Lebanese towns and villages. The set of strikes was one of the biggest between the two sides since fighting resumed in October. The bulk of the strikes were against short-range rocket launchers that could be used to hit northern Israel. In response, terrorist group Hezbollah fired over 320 Katyusha rockets at 11 military targets inside Israel. Most projectiles were stopped or hit open areas.
Friday newspaper round-up: Energy bills, listing rules, aircraft deliveries
Households will begin the run-up to winter with a sharp increase in their energy bills after the industry regulator increased its cap on energy prices by 9. 5% from October. Under the new price cap, the average annual energy bill will rise to £1,717 a year for gas and electricity, up £149 from its current level of £1,568, which has been in place since July. The price cap is set every quarter by Ofgem, the energy regulator for Great Britain, and imposes a maximum on how much suppliers can charge their 29 million household customers per unit of gas and electricity.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Asda, Post Office, M&S, Frasers Group
The owners of Asda are facing mounting pressure after figures showed the struggling supermarket chain’s share of the grocery market reached a “new nadir” as sales fell sharply this summer. The grocer’s sales fell 6. 4% in the three months to 10 August, equivalent to more than £2bn in annual lost revenues, as it became the only member of the traditional “big four” supermarkets to see sales shrink, according to analysts at NIQ. – Guardian.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Waitrose, McDonald's, Crown Agents
Waitrose is planning to open 100 convenience stores over the next five years as part of a £1bn-plus investment in new outlets and shop refurbishments. The upmarket grocery chain is planning to unveil a revamped outlet in Finchley Road, north London, on Wednesday. This will kick off a new phase of expansion with its first new store in six years in Hampton Hill, west London, by the end of this year. – Guardian.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Missing yacht, City Airport, energy bills
Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer is among those missing after a yacht carrying UK tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch sank off the coast of Sicily during a violent storm, an Italian official has said. Salvatore Cocina, head of the civil protection agency in Sicily, said Bloomer and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, were among the six people missing. Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, were also unaccounted for as of late Monday. – Guardian.
Monday newspaper round-up: Ted Baker, banks, Boohoo
Fashion brand Ted Baker’s remaining 31 stores in the UK are to close this week, putting more than 500 jobs at risk. Started as a men’s clothing label in Glasgow in 1988 by entrepreneur Ray Kelvin and becoming known for its quirky advertising and floral prints, Ted Baker’s UK arm entered administration in March after racking up losses. – Guardian.
Sunday newspaper round-up: Ukraine ceasefire, Morrisons, Labour
Moscow has postponed landmark negotiations with Kyiv that might have resulted in a partial ceasefire between the two countries. The two sides had agreed to send delegations to Doha for indirect talks aimed at stopping attacks on energy infrastructure. But the 6 August incursion into Russian territory by Ukraine's troops has been labelled as an escalation and led Moscow to postpone the talks. Some officials had hoped that the negotiations might mark a first step towards a deal to end the war.
Friday newspaper round-up: Housing targets, WH Smith, Thurrock council
Angela Rayner has been warned that the government could risk missing its housing targets by placing too much emphasis on creating new towns across England. The deputy prime minister announced plans last month for the “largest housebuilding programme since the postwar period”, kickstarted by the construction of a generation of new towns. – Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Wiz, Port Talbot, John Lewis
Cybersecurity firm Wiz, which last month rejected a $23bn (£18bn) takeover bid from Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is to open a European headquarters in London – a move that is a major shot in the arm for the UK’s aspiration to be a global tech hub. The new office, the company’s first in Europe, will be run by co-founder and research and development head, Roy Reznik, who is relocating from Israel to the UK capital to underscore the company’s business ambitions in the region.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Avon, AstraZeneca, Google
Anti-sewage campaigners have warned of “extreme anger” if the Labour government does not radically reform the water regulator. Sources at the Environment Agency (EA) and in the Labour party have told the Guardian that while Labour had spent time considering reforms of the EA and Ofwat in order to fix the sewage crisis, some stricter options that had been proposed were now off the table. -Guardian.