Category Archives: Business

UK warehouse landlord Segro rejects £12.6bn takeover offer from US rival

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FTSE 100 firm says Prologis all-share proposal turned down as it falls long way short of its own views on value

The UK warehouse landlord Segro is at the centre of the latest transatlantic takeover battle after rejecting a £12.6bn takeover approach from the US rival Prologis.

Prologis has gone public with its offer for the FTSE 100 company after it was “unequivocally rejected” by Segro’s board on Tuesday despite valuing the company at almost 25% more than its market value at that day’s close.

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Heatwave pushes Great Britain’s grid operator to call for extra electricity from power plants

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Neso issues rare summer warning for Wednesday evening, as households turn on fans and air conditioning

Great Britain’s grid operator has released a rare summer power supply warning for Wednesday evening as the heatwave is expected to get more intense, putting pressure on the energy system.

The National Energy System Operator (Neso) issued an electricity margin notice late on Tuesday, asking power plant owners to provide any extra electricity, as the buffer between supply and expected demand comes under pressure.

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Europe’s heatwave drives electricity prices to new highs as demand soars

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Great Britain has paid at least six times the normal price for imported power as millions turn on air conditioning and windfarm output sags

The heatwave has prompted a sharp rise in electricity prices across European markets as millions turn to air conditioners and electric fans to battle record high temperatures, which have also caused a string of power plant outages across the continent.

Great Britain imported electricity from Europe at more than six times the normal price on Tuesday as the high-pressure heat dome has slowed wind speeds, hitting renewable energy generation, and led to outages at multiple gas plants across the country.

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Royal Mail boss’s pay package triples to £6.9m despite profits slide

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Martin Seidenberg, chief executive of parent company IDS, handed payouts after takeover of UK postal service

The boss of Royal Mail’s parent company received almost £7m in pay and bonuses last year – more than triple the previous figure – despite group profits slumping by a fifth.

Martin Seidenberg, group chief executive of International Distribution Services (IDS), took home £6.9m in pay, bonus and long-term incentive scheme awards in the year to 31 March, compared with £2.1m the previous year.

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Gen Z earning more than millennials did at the same age, says thinktank

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At age 24, workers born in the late 1990s are paid more than any cohort since those born in the 1950s

Gen Z’s early careers are more financially rewarding than those of millennials, research suggests.

Those typically born between 1997 to 2012 are experiencing a mini-rebound in pay packets, according to the research by the Resolution Foundation, in a seeming contrast to how the previous generation entered the job market.

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Australia news live: arrival of H5N1 bird flu a ‘genuine wildlife emergency’, experts say; fuel excise rebate extended for extra month

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Tram passengers in Melbourne will be able to pay for their trip using a bank card, smartphone or smartwatch from today.

The long awaited expansion of tap-and-go payments follows a staged roll out to the city’s train network and main regional routes. Buses are expected to follow.

From today, you can step off a train and straight on to a tram using the same phone, watch or bank card.

Four in five tap and go trips are already being made with a phone or smartwatch – showing more Victorians are leaving the wallet at home.

The potential for this virus to kill wildlife in significant numbers means it could be particularly catastrophic for threatened species.

We are talking about possible extinctions, alongside severe impacts to common birds like our beloved pelicans and black swans.

This is a genuine wildlife emergency and it must be treated as such with emergency funding to increase efforts to protect wildlife populations.

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Hormuz disruption will continue until 80 mines blocking route are cleared

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Tanker owner trade body says centre of strait will stay shut for ‘some time’, and vessels forced to hug Omani coast risk running aground

The centre of the strait of Hormuz is blocked with about 80 mines that will need clearing for normal shipping to resume, the independent tanker owner trade body has said.

Several vessels began to exit the Gulf through the key maritime chokepoint on Thursday after the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the US and Iran.

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KPMG leaked confidential Optus information and surveilled whistleblower’s laptop, inquiry hears

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International firm owns up to breach of ethics after staff leaked confidential Optus information while bidding for telco contract

KPMG has admitted to another breach of ethics after its staff leaked Optus’ confidential information to colleagues bidding for an audit contract with Telstra.

The consulting firm’s executives also surveilled a whistleblower’s laptop and dismissed the individual as someone with “workplace grievances”, a parliamentary inquiry heard on Friday.

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Burnham brings in top economists before possible leadership run

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Labour mayor giving advisory roles to ex-Bank of England economist and others seen as attempt to reassure markets

Three economic heavyweights have been brought in to advise Andy Burnham as he attempts to reassure the markets before his possible return to parliament on Friday and challenge to Keir Starmer.

Burnham is understood to be getting advice from Andy Haldane, a former Bank of England chief economist, as well as Richard Hughes, a former chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility and Jim O’Neill, a crossbench peer and former Treasury minister who worked on George Osborne’s “Northern Powerhouse”.

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UK unemployment rate falls to 4.9% and wages grow more than expected

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Drop will put pressure on Bank of England to raise interest rates despite peace deal in Iran war

Unemployment fell and wages increased in April, official figures showed, putting pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates despite a peace deal in the Middle East.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed unemployment slipped to 4.9% in the three months to April from 5% in the three months to March.

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Tesco’s UK sales growth more than halves amid Iran war uncertainty

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UK’s biggest retailer reports better figures than expected by City analysts and is cheered by strong online sales

Tesco’s UK sales growth has more than halved as it said the conflict in the Middle East had created “ongoing uncertainty for many households”.

The UK’s biggest retailer said comparable sales rose 1.8% to £13.4bn in the three months to the end of May, below both the 4.2% reported in the previous quarter and the 2.3% growth City analysts had expected.

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Rejoining customs union would not fix damage caused by Brexit, research finds

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Exclusive: Economists find Brexit caused 12% depression in UK exports, most of which is due to leaving single market

Brexit has depressed UK exports to the EU by 12%, and rejoining the customs union would undo only a fraction of the damage, research shared with the Guardian shows.

With the UK’s future relationship with the bloc likely to feature prominently in a potential Labour leadership contest, the economists John Springford and Anton Spisak, of the Centre for European Reform, provide fresh evidence of the damage caused by exiting.

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Lululemon apologises after Japanese drum row at Great Wall yoga event

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Online uproar follows Canadian brand’s use of taiko drum at sponsored festival held to celebrate Chinese culture

The activewear brand Lululemon has apologised after a promotional event held on the Great Wall of China appeared to mistakenly feature a Japanese drum, prompting an uproar.

The Canadian-headquartered company, known for its upmarket leggings, has been growing rapidly in China and arranged for a yoga festival to take place in late May on a section of the wall near Beijing.

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Fujitsu chair resigns after ‘woman-related inappropriate conduct’

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Japanese technology company at centre of Post Office IT scandal is negotiating settlement with UK government over faulty software

The chair of Fujitsu, the Japanese technology firm at the centre of the Post Office IT scandal, has resigned after its board became aware of his “woman-related inappropriate conduct”.

The company said on Tuesday that Hidenori Furuta had stepped down after two years in the role.

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Bank of Japan raises interest rates to 31-year high … of 1%

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Country acts amid Iran war inflation pressures, but US Fed and Bank of England expected to hold rates

The Bank of Japan (BoJ) has raised interest rates to a 31-year high as it tries to dampen inflationary pressures created by the Iran war.

Policymakers in Tokyo raised the BoJ’s short-term policy rate by a quarter of one percentage point, to 1% from 0.75%, and warned that companies were passing on rising oil costs to each other at a “relatively fast pace”.

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EV prices in UK and EU not likely to dive due to Chinese rivalry, says Xpeng boss

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Brian Gu says he sees Chinese car firms competing on quality rather than launching price war as at home

Motorists in the UK and EU should not expect a sharp drop in the cost of electric vehicles despite increased competition among Chinese manufacturers, one of the country’s biggest electric carmakers has said.

Brian Gu, the vice-chair of the manufacturer Xpeng, said that Chinese carmakers could compete on quality to win customers in the EU and UK, rather than unleashing a brutal price war as they have in China.

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Canada eliminates human rights watchdog that oversees companies operating abroad

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Mark Carney says Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise office hasn’t been ‘effective’ since its 2019 setup

Canada is eliminating a watchdog that investigates alleged human rights violations committed by Canadian companies operating abroad, after Mark Carney said the office hadn’t been “effective” since it was set up in 2019.

The move comes as Canada faces criticism from Donald Trump’s administration over its “unacceptable” efforts to combat forced labour.

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Oil and gas unlikely to return to prewar prices for months even if Hormuz reopens

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Markets welcome US-Iran peace deal but prices may stay high as buyers race to refill depleted emergency crude stockpiles

After more than 100 days of the greatest recorded disruption to the world’s energy supplies, the global oil and gas markets have breathed a sigh of relief.

Hours after Donald Trump confirmed that a US-Iran peace deal would lead to the reopening of the strait of Hormuz for tankers carrying millions of barrels of oil and gas, the price of Brent crude tumbled to lows of $82 a barrel. Wholesale gas prices fell about 6%.

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Britain ‘faces deindustrialisation’ without relief from high energy prices, survey warns

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Make UK says manufacturers’ feedback shows sector at risk of collapse as it calls on Treasury to take action

Britain’s industrial sector is at risk of collapse as thousands of companies warn that they could face bankruptcy within the next year because of high energy prices, according to an industry survey.

The manufacturers’ body Make UK said the latest feedback from its members found that many would not be able to cope for much longer with energy costs that were twice the average in continental Europe and four times higher than in the US.

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UK poised to water down 2030 EV sales targets after industry and union pressure

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Keir Starmer ready to overrule Ed Miliband after warnings that manufacturers would be penalised and jobs put at risk

The UK government is poised to water down its 2030 targets for electric vehicle sales after intense lobbying by the car industry and unions.

The government is preparing to consult on less ambitious targets for the transition to fully battery-powered electric cars over the rest of the decade after carmakers and unions warned that they would penalise manufacturers and put jobs at risk.

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