Shawbrook weighs Aldermore bid as Firstrand looks to offload challenger bank May 25, 2026 Shawbrook is reportedly weighing up a merger with rival Aldermore after its owner put the challenger bank up for sale. The lender, which debuted on the London Stock Exchange last year, is in the early stages of considering a takeover, according to Sky News’ Mark Kleinman. South Africa-based financial services group Firstrand, which bought Aldermore [...]
Oyster Shed: Jeremy Clarkson’s Hawkstone helps pub chain Young’s to biggest day of takings in 200 years May 22, 2026 One of the Square Mile’s best-known watering holes has marked the biggest single day of takings of any venue owned by pub chain Young’s since it was founded nearly 200 years ago, CityAM can reveal. And the Oyster Shed had a helping hand from one of the best-known names in UK television: Jeremy Clarkson, [...]
No, London’s economy hasn’t lost its lustre. Here’s why May 21, 2026 The FT has once again remembered to write about London, the city in which the paper was founded and where the lion’s share of its staff, and its readership, is based. Though it turns out the pink’un hasn’t many nice things to say. London’s economy has lost its lustre, the paper writes. Among the evidence [...]
PRs: This is how to handle conflict May 21, 2026 As a humanities student, one of the academics I cited regularly was the 20th century philosopher AJ Ayer. Ayer is credited, among other things, with popularising, in the English speaking world, the movement of logical positivism – which, to oversimplify, is a theory of the meaning of statements about the world. Few academics were more [...]
‘We’ll keep acquiring’: Young’s sets sights on buying up dozens more London pubs May 21, 2026 One of London’s biggest pub chains has said it wants to buy up dozens more pubs after cheering the success of recent takeovers. Young’s, which currently operates around 280 pubs across the country, has set a medium-term target of expanding its estate to 350 pubs. The group has been on a major acquisition spree over [...]
BT overhauls dividend policy as it vows ‘enhanced distributions’ for shareholders May 21, 2026 BT has refreshed its dividend policy as the telco giant vowed to deliver “enhanced distributions” for shareholders. The FTSE 100 member declared a final dividend of 5.87p, increasing its full-year dividend by 2 per cent to 8.32p. BT said its new policy would be to “grow the dividend by low to mid single digit percent [...]
Vattenfall energy portfolio poised to be snapped up by private equity firm May 20, 2026 Swedish energy giant Vattenfall is poised to offload a portfolio of its British assets to private equity firm Reinova in the latest step in its retreat from the UK, CityAM understands. The conglomerate, owned by the government of Sweden, is set to sell three of its heat network businesses to London-based Reinova Capital for [...]
Costco UK profit soars as Brits buy in bulk amid cost of living pressures May 20, 2026 Profit at Costco’s UK subsidiary has soared as Brits flocked to the wholesaler to buy in bulk in a bid to swerve cost of living pressures. The grocery chain, which has 29 stores across the UK, including six in London, generated pre-tax profit of £218.6m in the year to the end of August 2025, a [...]
Mustafa Suleyman-founded Inflection AI to return to London May 20, 2026 Silicon Valley startup Inflection AI is marking a return to London as the company forges ahead with its expansion plans, CityAM can reveal. The artificial intelligence business was launched in 2022 by Deepmind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman and attracted early backing from Linkedin founder Reid Hoffman. It released its own large language model, Pi, and [...]
Tortilla Mexican Grill admits multi-million accounting blunder May 19, 2026 Shares in Tortilla Mexican Grill tumbled in early trade on Tuesday after the firm admitted to a multi-million pound accounting blunder. The AIM-listed business said it identified £2.5m of spending in its French arm which was “not expensed through the profit and loss account,” meaning it previously overstated its profits for 2025 and in doing [...]
