Market Buzz
Thursday newspaper round-up: Energy suppliers, Tokamak Energy, RedBird IMI
Energy suppliers will spend £500m helping customers with their energy bills this winter, after the government helped broker a deal involving 12 of the biggest companies in the UK. Suppliers will spend the money in a variety of ways, including putting credit on some customers’ bills, writing off the debts of others and putting credit on prepayment meters, sources told the Guardian. – Guardian.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Aviva Investors, HSBC, car finance
One of the UK’s biggest pension funds has lost more than £350m on a series of “calamitous” investments in incinerator power plants that are expected to go bust in the coming days. The Guardian understands that Aviva Investors will put three incinerators into administration this week after pouring millions of pounds into what has been described as the country’s “dirtiest form of power generation”. – Guardian.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Starling Bank, Asos, Morrisons
Staff have resigned at Starling Bank after its new chief executive demanded thousands of workers attend its offices more regularly, despite lacking enough space to host them. In his first major policy change since taking over from the UK digital bank’s founder, Anne Boden, in March, Raman Bhatia has ordered all hybrid staff – many of whom were in the office only one or two days a week, or on an ad-hoc basis – to travel to work for a minimum of 10 days each month.
Monday newspaper round-up: Energy bills, Black Friday, Lloyds Bank, Sephora
Household energy bills across Great Britain are set to rise at the start of next year, analysts predict, putting more pressure on household finances. Officially, the price cap for January-March 2025 will be set on Friday morning by regulator Ofgem, limiting what energy providers can charge in England, Scotland and Wales. – Guardian.
Sunday newspaper round-up: Kursk, AstraZeneca, BAE Systems
America's President has authorised Ukraine to employ long-range ATACMS supplied by the US to strike targets inside Russia. More specifically, Kyiv will now be allowed to strike targets within the Kursk region, the New York Times reported. Speculation may increase that permission from Britain, the US and France to do the same with Storm Shadow missiles could follow. Joe Biden's decision is said to have been triggered by the appearance of North Korean troops in the Kursk region.
Friday newspaper round-up: London Capital & Finance, airlines, Resolute Mining
Investment firm London Capital & Finance (LCF), whose failure in 2019 triggered one of Britain’s biggest retail investment scandals, operated as a Ponzi scheme, a London judge ruled on Thursday. The high court said former chief executive Michael Thomson and four others had knowingly participated in the fraud, misled investors and misappropriated assets in a ruling welcomed by LCF’s joint administrators, which brought the case. – Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Homebase, P&O Ferries, Boohoo
The struggling DIY chain Homebase has collapsed into administration, leaving thousands of workers facing an uncertain future, despite the purchase of the bulk of its stores by the owner of The Range homeware retailer. Gavin Park, Gavin Maher and Adele Macleod from the financial advisory firm Teneo were appointed as joint administrators of Homebase’s owners, HHGL Limited and Hampden Group Limited. – Guardian.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Post Office, Spirit AeroSystems, Flutter
The Post Office is expected to announce the closure of dozens of branches and cut up to 1,000 head office jobs as it seeks to reduce costs to secure its financial future. There are about 11,500 Post Office branches across the UK, of which 115 are wholly centrally owned. The rest are operated by independent post office operators under contract and partners such as WH Smith and Tesco. – Guardian.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Bluesky, British Steel, FRC
Social media platform Bluesky has picked up more than 700,000 new users in the week since the US election, as users seek to escape misinformation and offensive posts on X. The influx, largely from North America and the UK, has helped Bluesky reach 14. 5 million users worldwide, up from 9 million in September, the company said. – Guardian.
Monday newspaper round-up: Hospitality, wind generation, Vertical Aerospace
Great Britain “lags behind” Europe on measures to restrict betting adverts, according to a report released days after official data showed a sharp increase in the number of children with a gambling problem. Restrictions on ads by bookmakers and casinos are increasingly becoming “the norm” across Europe in response to public health concerns, according to a report commissioned by GambleAware, the UK’s leading gambling charity. – Guardian.
Friday newspaper round-up: AI, Bentley, News Corp
Dozens of health and children’s groups have urged ministers to tackle obesity by imposing taxes on foods containing too much salt or sugar. New levies based on the sugar tax on soft drinks would make it easier for consumers to eat more healthily by forcing food manufacturers to reformulate their products, they claim. – Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Scams, second-hand car sales, AstraZeneca
Companies could face fines of up to $50m for failing to prevent scams and may be forced to compensate victims under new laws the Albanese government says would give Australians the strongest anti-scammer protection in the world. The government will introduce legislation to federal parliament on Thursday to establish its long-awaited “scams prevention framework”. – Guardian.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Eurostar, Asda, jobless rate
Cross-channel train operator Eurostar has been criticised by the advertising watchdog for exaggerating the number of £39 seats on sale. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that Eurostar ads across Instagram and Facebook for £39 tickets from London to Amsterdam and Brussels were misleading, the second time it has censured its ads this year. – Guardian.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Oasis fans, house prices, Future
The $1m-a-day voter sweepstakes that Elon Musk’s political action committee is hosting in swing states can continue through Tuesday’s presidential election, a Pennsylvania judge ruled on Monday. The common pleas court judge Angelo Foglietta – ruling after Musk’s lawyers said the winners are not chosen by chance – did not immediately give a reason for the ruling. – Guardian.
Monday newspaper round-up: Four-day week, UK energy, Apple
Fraudsters may have stolen £500,000 from a taxpayer-funded scheme aimed at accelerating the removal of dangerous cladding from buildings, the public spending watchdog has revealed. The National Audit Office said the government decision to prioritise speed in handing out money to building owners had increased its risk of losses from fraud. The warning came in an NAO report into the government’s progress in remediating dangerous cladding from blocks after the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017.
Friday newspaper round-up: Boeing, Amazon, Harland & Wolff
Striking Boeing workers will vote on an improved contract offer on Monday, which includes a 38% pay rise over four years and a bigger signing bonus, their union said on Thursday. More than 30,000 factory workers who produce Boeing’s strongest-selling 737 Max commercial jet and other planes have been on strike since 13 September and have rejected two earlier offers from Boeing. – Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Lloyds Banking Group, Microsoft, car finance crisis
The former cryptocurrency executive Nishad Singh, who once shared a $35m Bahamas penthouse with the FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was spared prison time by a judge on Wednesday for his role in the theft by his imprisoned former boss of about $8bn in customer funds from the now bankrupt exchange. The United States district judge Lewis Kaplan imposed the sentence during a hearing in Manhattan federal court. – Guardian.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Starbucks, Santander, Alphabet
Starbucks office workers will risk losing their jobs if they fail to comply with the company’s hybrid work requirement that employees are in the office three times a week. According to the Wall Street Journal an internal message sent to employees warns that an “accountability process” will start in January 2025. Consequences for non-compliance are “up to, and including, separation”, according to the company message. – Guardian.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Brexit border checks, Evri, UK bond sales
A lack of social mobility is costing the UK £19bn a year, a report produced by the cross-party thinktank Demos and the Co-op has found. The Social Mobility Commission, which advises the government, defines social mobility as “the link between a person’s occupation or income and the occupation or income of their parents”. – Guardian.
Monday newspaper round-up: Sellafield, HBOS, retail investors
Rachel Reeves has been urged not to carry out mooted funding cuts for nuclear sites including Sellafield amid safety concerns, as it emerged that the number of incidents where workers narrowly avoided harm had increased at the Cumbrian site. The GMB union has written to Reeves, the chancellor, before Wednesday’s budget to raise safety concerns after rumours emerged that the budget for the taxpayer-owned Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) could be reduced, which could result in cuts at nuclear sites including Sellafield and Dounreay in Scotland.