UK public spending will swell to more than half of GDP, IMF warns May 28, 2025 The British state will swell to more than half the total size of the UK economy under the government’s current plans, the International Monetary Fund has warned, as it sounded the alarm on “tough policy decisions” needed to meet ballooning spending. Total public expenditure is projected to grow by eight percentage points over the next [...]
Up to 4,000 livelihoods at risk as ABF prepares to pull plug on bioethanol plant May 27, 2025 As many as 4,000 livelihoods are at risk after the owner of Britain’s largest bioethanol plant has warned it could shut within days, citing UK-US tariff policy. ABF, which owns the Vivergo Fuels plant in Yorkshire, has written to farmers warning it planned to suspend purchases of wheat used in the production process unless the [...]
Firms ‘staying private for longer’ as listing drought set to continue, Baillie Gifford says May 27, 2025 British businesses are set to stay “private for longer” as a drought in IPOs shows no sign of coming to an end, an investor at Baillie Gifford has warned. Pater Singlehurst, head of private company investments at the Edinburgh-based business, said investors would need to regain trust in companies looking to list before any signs [...]
‘The most calls I’ve ever had’ – Why Japanese bonds have suffered surging yields May 27, 2025 The Japanese bond market has suffered one of its worst weeks in years. An auction on Japan’s 20-year government bond saw its bid-to-cover ratio, a measure of demand, sink to levels last seen in 2012, while the auction’s tail, the gap between average and lowest-accepted prices, widened to the longest since 1987, in another sign [...]
Could Gordon Ramsay’s ramen deal be his latest kitchen nightmare? May 27, 2025 “Take a nice hefty fork of noodles,” Gordon Ramsay says, “and now we’re going to start building.” “Sprinkle my veg in and around: look at that, beautiful. And then add a touch more noodles.” Ramsay is in the middle of a YouTube tutorial on the Chef Woo channel, showing viewers how to make a chicken [...]
New warning over ‘stealth’ £9bn income tax raid May 27, 2025 The government is under fire over its “stealth tax bombshell” as hundreds of thousands of Brits are set to be dragged into higher tax bands by the end of the decade. As many as 1.9m workers will see their pay fall into higher tax brackets by 2030 as the bands fail to keep pace with [...]
Slash red tape for fund managers or risk ‘industry exodus’ May 23, 2025 The government must slash red tape preventing new fund managers from setting up or risk an industry exodus, experts have warned. The rate of new fund management businesses being created has dropped precipitously in recent years as high barriers to entry have pushed too many entrepreneurs away from the industry, according to a report by [...]
BT ups dividend as firm refocuses on the UK May 22, 2025 BT has upped its dividend to shareholders as the telecoms giant reported a rise in profits. The FTSE 100 company has declared a final dividend of 5.76p per share, bringing its full-year dividend to 8.16p, an increase of two per cent on the previous year. The firm’s policy is to at least maintain or increase [...]
Government debt sale delayed over ‘Bloomberg system issues’ May 21, 2025 An auction of UK government debt was delayed on Wednesday after a Bloomberg system outage prevented traders from participating. In a statement the UK’s Debt Management Office (DMO) said: “Due to the ongoing market-wide Bloomberg system issues, the bidding window for this morning’s auction of 4 per cent Treasury Gilt 2031 is being extended.” A [...]
‘Governance horror-show’: AVI hits out at takeover plan from Dan Loeb-backed Third Point May 21, 2025 A major shareholder of a London-listed business backed by New York hedge fund manager Dan Loeb has hit out at its planned takeover of a US insurer. AVI, which controls a 7.1 per cent share of Third Point Investors, described its takeover proposal as a “governance horror-show”. “Third Point Investors has for some time been [...]
