• Friday newspaper round-up: UK lenders, independent breweries, HP, MoD

  Friday 21 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - UK lenders paid "advance commissions" to car dealers that may have encouraged them to push costlier loans on to consumers, legal filings linked to the motor finance scandal reveal. Court documents seen by the Guardian show that lenders, including Lloyds Banking Group, have paid commission to individual dealerships in lump sums upfront, which campaigners say total millions of pounds. - Guardian

• Thursday newspaper round-up: British Steel, public services, Microsoft

  Thursday 20 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - British Steel should get an extra £200m from the government to support it in keeping the UK's two remaining blast furnaces open until electric replacements are built, according to a proposal put forward by unions. Chinese-owned British Steel has said it will replace its polluting blast furnaces at Scunthorpe with electric arc furnaces, which can be used to make much cleaner, recycled steel. - Guardian

• Wednesday newspaper round-up: Trump, heat pumps, sickness benefits

  Wednesday 19 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - Donald Trump stood firm against warnings that his threatened trade war risks derailing the US economy, claiming his administration could hit foreign cars with tariffs of around 25% within weeks. Semiconductor chips and drugs are set to face higher duties, Trump told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday. - Guardian

• Monday newspaper round-up: Council tax, layoffs, tech companies

  Monday 17 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - Britain's poorest households are paying an increasing share of their income on council tax, according to new analysis that likened it to the poll tax that contributed to the downfall of Margaret Thatcher. The poorest fifth of households paid 4.8% of their income on council tax in England, Wales and Scotland and on domestic rates in Northern Ireland in the 2020-21 financial year, up from 2.9% in 2002-3, according to research by the Resolution Foundation. - Guardian

• Friday newspaper round-up: Barclays, BP, JPMorgan

  Friday 14 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - The UK government will "wait and see" whether tariffs announced by Donald Trump "actually come to pass", a senior minister said. The US president announced what he called "reciprocal tariffs" on all other countries on Thursday evening, claiming it was "fair to all". But it was unclear how this would apply to the UK, especially as Trump suggested his policy regarded VAT as a tariff. - Guardian

• Thursday newspaper round-up: Solar panels, OBR, Chevron

  Thursday 13 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - California's home-insurance safety net does not have enough money to pay all of the claims from damage caused by the Los Angeles wildfires and has asked private insurers to contribute $1bn toward those claims. All private insurers operating in California are required to contribute to the Fair plan, a plan of last resort established so all Californians would have access to fire insurance. More than 450,000 California homeowners got their insurance through the Fair plan in 2024 - more than double the number in 2020. As of 4 February, the plan had received more than 4,700 claims from the Palisades and Eaton fires, almost half of which were for "total losses". - Guardian

• Wednesday newspaper round-up: British economy, Heathrow, FOS

  Wednesday 12 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - The British economy is on course to expand by 1.5% this year after the budget gave a boost to public spending but could be blown off course if Donald Trump goes ahead with threatened tariffs, a leading economic thinktank has warned. In a boost to Rachel Reeves after a bruising month of negative economic figures, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) upped its annual growth prediction from 1.2% to 1.5%. - Guardian

• Tuesday newspaper round-up: OpenAI, EVs, gas prices

  Tuesday 11 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - Elon Musk escalated his feud with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman on Monday. The billionaire is leading a consortium of investors that announced it had submitted a bid of $97.4bn for "all assets" of the artificial intelligence company to OpenAI's board of directors. The startup, which operates ChatGPT, has been working to restructure itself away from its original non-profit status. OpenAI also operates a for-profit subsidiary, and Musk's unsolicited offer could complicate the company's plans. The Wall Street Journal first reported the proposed bid. - Guardian

• Monday newspaper round-up: Service charge, BP, Heathrow, Elon Musk

  Monday 10 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - An increasingly complex tax system is burdening the government and businesses with hundreds of millions of pounds more in administration costs, Whitehall's spending watchdog has warned. The report by the National Audit Office (NAO) also said "poor levels of service" meant some taxpayers and their representatives were "finding it more difficult to deal with their tax matters and are losing trust in HM Revenue & Customs [HMRC]". - Guardian

• Sunday newspaper round-up: Etihad float, Shein, Thames Water

  Sunday 09 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - Abu Dhabi based carrier Etihad is planning to float a stake of up to 20% on the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange. Sources indicate that it could command a valuation of $5bn (£4bn). It would be the second such transaction for its boss, Antonoaldo Neves. In 2017, the former McKinsey partner floated Azul, Brazil's third-largest airline, on the New York Stock Exchange. For Neves, any airline that aspires to be "relevant" needs to tap into different sources of capital. Its goal is to fly 170 jets by 2030, up from 93 at present. - The Sunday Times

• Friday newspaper round-up: Gambling sector, FOS, Amazon

  Friday 07 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - The gambling regulator has accidentally handed over more than 4,000 sensitive documents to lawyers acting for the media tycoon Richard Desmond, in an "unprecedented" blunder during its legal battle over the £6.4bn national lottery contract, the Guardian understands. Northern & Shell (N&S), the investment group owned by Desmond, is suing the Gambling Commission for £200m in damages over its handling of the lottery licence award process. - Guardian

• Thursday newspaper round-up: CMA, Riverford, Lloyds, Arm Holdings

  Thursday 06 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - The appointment of the former boss of Amazon UK to lead the competition watchdog poses a threat to its independence and pledge to hold big tech to account, according to a group including tech companies and the former business secretary Vince Cable. The group - which includes the News Media Association, the Firefox developer Mozilla, the consumer group Which? and the Future of Technology Institute - has written to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to raise concerns about the appointment of Doug Gurr as the interim chair of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). - Guardian

• Wednesday newspaper round-up: Thames Water, Johnson & Johnson, BoE

  Wednesday 05 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - Thames Water may need as much as £10bn in debt and equity investment to repair its finances, according to a representative of creditors hoping to lend the struggling utility another £3bn. London's high court heard evidence on Tuesday that suggested the UK's largest water company may need significantly more resources than the roughly £6.3bn it has previously indicated. - Guardian

• Tuesday newspaper round-up: AstraZeneca, Thames Water, Funding Circle

  Tuesday 04 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - The UK's science minister, Chris Bryant, has described AstraZeneca's decision to scrap plans for a £450m expansion of its vaccine plant in Merseyside as "deeply disappointing". The pharmaceutical company announced on Friday that it was axing the planned expansion of its factory in the Liverpool suburb of Speke, citing factors "including the timing and reduction of the final offer compared to the previous government's proposal". - Guardian

• Monday newspaper round-up: Zero-hours contracts, Barclays, Asos

  Monday 03 Feb 2025

  (Sharecast News) - Hundreds of thousands of British workers are on zero-hours contracts despite being with the same employer for years, according to analysis from the TUC. The majority of zero-hours contract workers have been with their employer for more than 12 months, while one in eight have not been granted regular employment rights after more than a decade working in the same place, the organisation said. - Guardian

• Friday newspaper round-up: Apple, Daily Mail, OpenAI, Homebase

  Friday 31 Jan 2025

  (Sharecast News) - Apple slightly beat analysts' expectations in its first-quarter earnings for fiscal year 2025 on Thursday. The iPhone-maker's revenue rose by 4%, coming in at $124.30bn, barely above estimates of $124.12bn. Earnings per share were $2.40, just ahead of analysts' expectations of $2.35. Shares rose more than 8% in extended trading after CEO Tim Cook indicated in an earnings call on Thursday that Apple is on the trajectory for revenue growth next quarter. - Guardian

• Thursday newspaper round-up: Car production, UK retailers, water bills, KPMG

  Thursday 30 Jan 2025

  (Sharecast News) - The architect of a ban on newspaper takeovers by foreign states has demanded that an Abu Dhabi fund be forced to sell The Telegraph by Easter. Baroness Stowell, the Conservative chairman of the Lords communications and digital committee, said the Government should impose an ultimatum on RedBird IMI. It should be backed by the threat of regulatory action, she said, to strip the fund of control of what has been dubbed "the newspaper auction from hell". - Telegraph

• Thursday newspaper round-up: Car production, UK retailers, water bills, KPMG

  Thursday 30 Jan 2025

  (Sharecast News) - The architect of a ban on newspaper takeovers by foreign states has demanded that an Abu Dhabi fund be forced to sell The Telegraph by Easter. Baroness Stowell, the Conservative chairman of the Lords communications and digital committee, said the Government should impose an ultimatum on RedBird IMI. It should be backed by the threat of regulatory action, she said, to strip the fund of control of what has been dubbed "the newspaper auction from hell". - Telegraph

• Wednesday newspaper round-up: Starbucks, JPMorgan, Santander

  Wednesday 29 Jan 2025

  (Sharecast News) - Rachel Reeves is unveiling plans to create "Europe's Silicon Valley" between Oxford and Cambridge as she stakes the government's success on kickstarting economic growth and putting more pounds in people's pockets. The chancellor will announce a blueprint to improve infrastructure across the region that will add up to £78bn to the UK economy within a decade, according to industry experts, and put it at the forefront of science and technological advances. - Guardian

• Tuesday newspaper round-up: Amazon, Nvidia, Harland & Wolff

  Tuesday 28 Jan 2025

  (Sharecast News) - The UK has given more than £12.5bn from energy bills to fossil fuel power plants in the past decade through a government scheme to keep the lights on during winter, according to new analysis. The research found that, since 2015, the government has offered contracts worth £20bn through a "capacity market" to create a backup reserve of generators on standby, of which about 60% were fossil fuel power plants and a quarter were energy storage and power cable projects. - Guardian

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