Monday newspaper round-up: Santander UK, Thames Water, Oxford Quantum Circuits
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Monday 19 May 2025
(Sharecast News) - Santander UK is freezing salaries, slashing bonuses and cutting jobs across its commercial banking arm as part of a wider shake-up that could help make the bank more attractive to potential buyers. The bank began unexpectedly changing bankers' job titles and shuffling staff into new teams earlier this month amid a larger review of the Spanish lender's UK business, where there is mounting frustration over regulations and costs. - Guardian
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, could be forced to spend more than £5bn and employ 92,000 extra workers across the public sector if declines in productivity continue until 2030, according to analysis of official figures. The Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), an economic consultancy, said more workers would be needed by the end of the decade to achieve the same level of service, after a decline last year in the amount produced each hour by the average public sector worker. - Guardian
The former head of GCHQ has joined the board of an Oxford quantum computing start-up as Britain vies with China and the US for an edge developing the cutting-edge supercomputers. Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) has appointed Sir Jeremy Fleming, who led the spy agency until 2023, as a director. The start-up has raised more than £100m to build a fleet of advanced quantum computers, some of which are already being tested by customers. - Telegraph
Creditors of Thames Water are braced to write off £6 billion, or one third, of its debt if KKR successfully takes control of the company. Additionally, according to informed sources, creditors will only be able to swap their debt for new equity in the troubled regional water monopoly if they are prepared to inject more cash. - The Times
The government is being urged to consider leaning on Britain's £150 billion foreign exchange reserves to prevent deep cuts in overseas aid to low-income countries threatened by the withdrawal of US funding. A group of Labour MPs wants the government to maintain its commitment of nearly £2 billion to the World Bank's International Development Association, a facility for poor countries, which is in the line of fire as the UK cuts its foreign aid budget. - The Times
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