Business

The outgoing boss of the Post Office has said he does not need to clear his name following criticism of his leadership over the Horizon IT scandal. Nick Read made the comments as he arrived for the first of three days of evidence to the inquiry into the scandal, in which more than 900 sub-postmasters

Lenders holding £12bn of Thames Water’s debt have held face-to-face talks with Ofwat this week to pitch a rescue deal that they believe would avert the nationalisation of Britain’s biggest water utility. Sky News has learnt that a creditor group advised by Jefferies, the investment bank, met officials from the industry regulator on Tuesday to

A big four audit firm and one of Britain’s high street banks have resumed their membership of the CBI, delivering a boost to the scandal-hit lobbying group’s hopes that it can recover its long-standing influence in government. Sky News has learnt that KPMG and NatWest Group returned to being full members of the CBI this

The family which relinquished control of The Daily Telegraph last year is to hire a trio of banks to oversee a review of ownership options for Very Group, their online shopping empire. Sky News has learnt that the board of Very Group – now chaired by Nadhim Zahawi, the former chancellor – is lining up

A rescue deal for the British operations of TGI Fridays which will salvage more than 2,000 jobs is on the verge of being finalised this weekend. Sky News has learnt that Breal Capital and Calveton, which jointly own the upmarket restaurants business D&D London, could agree a deal to acquire the majority of TGI Fridays

Before we get onto the budget and what Rachel Reeves might do to fiddle her fiscal rules and give herself a little more room to spend, I want you to ponder, for a moment, a recent report from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). This wasn’t one of those big OBR reports that get lots

The UK needs a strategy to meet growing demand for data centres or risk losing its advantage in the race to develop artificial intelligence (AI), one of the sector’s largest players has told Sky News. Data centres – warehouses housing processors that power cloud computing – are central to the digital economy. They provide the

The boss of the UK motor industry’s lobby group has blamed “criminal activity” for UK-made luxury cars finding their way into sanction-hit Russia. The chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) Mike Hawes was speaking just over a week after Sky News uncovered a system of getting vehicles from the UK

The government has pledged nearly £22bn to fund projects that capture greenhouse gases from polluting plants and store them underground, as it races to reach strict climate targets. The plans are designed to generate private investment and jobs in Merseyside and Teesside, two industry-heavy areas that will be home to the new “carbon capture clusters”.

Financial markets are now pricing in a shock interest rate cut for the UK at the next Bank of England meeting following remarks by its governor. There was a huge shift in expectations after Andrew Bailey told the Guardian newspaper the bank could be “a bit more aggressive” in its approach. He talked about inflation

Compass Group, the FTSE-100 catering giant which counts the Wimbledon tennis championships among its most prestigious contracts, is in talks with its investors about increasing its boss’s potential pay package by millions of pounds a year. Sky News has learnt that Compass is consulting its biggest institutional shareholders about substantial hikes to the annual bonus

Israel is fighting on at least four fronts, threatening a war across the oil-rich Middle East, but there is no great sense of fear yet as far as financial markets are concerned. Israel’s actions against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and the ultimate sponsors of these groups, Iran, has proved

Mulberry, the struggling UK luxury brand, has rejected a proposed takeover bid by Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group. Frasers, which is majority owned by the tycoon and best-known for its Sports Direct brand, made an offer on Monday that valued Mulberry at £83m. The company is the second largest shareholder in Mulberry, with a 37% holding.

Bosses at eBay have scrapped fees for private sellers across most categories. The online marketplace, which had already removed such fees for fashion earlier this year amid increasing competition from rival sites such as Depop and Vinted, said the move should boost reselling and the customer experience at the same time. It means sellers no

Mike Ashley’s sprawling retail empire Frasers Group has revealed a takeover bid for Mulberry, the struggling luxury brand, claiming it wants to save the company from a potential Debenhams-style collapse. Frasers, which already owns 37% of Mulberry’s shares, said it had made a non-binding approach for the stock it does not already hold. Its 130p-per-share

The ownership of The Daily Telegraph has been transferred to a new holding company as bidders and employees await news of the destiny of one of Britain’s most influential newspaper publishers. Sky News has learnt that a ‘hive-down’ to simplify the ownership structure of the title and its Sunday sister title has been completed in

Carlyle, the American investment giant, has become the latest global fund to weigh an investment in Thames Water as the stricken utility races to avoid being nationalised. Sky News has learnt that Carlyle, which has roughly $435bn in assets under management, is at the very preliminary stages of assessing whether an investment in Thames Water

A former owner of Missguided, the youth fashion brand, is in talks to buy Kurt Geiger, the upmarket shoe and accessories retailer. Sky News has learnt that Alteri Investors, which was backed by the global private equity giant Apollo Management when it launched a decade ago, is among a number of parties in discussions about

The private equity giant which owns a stake in rugby’s Six Nations Championship is weighing a bid for a stake in one of Britain’s biggest online travel agents. Sky News has learnt that CVC Capital Partners is among the suitors considering making an offer to become a partial owner of Loveholidays. The travel company, which

One of the UK’s largest water companies is considering shipping supplies from Norway to the UK. Southern Water said the idea was a “last-resort contingency measure” in case of extreme droughts in the early 2030s. Up to 45 million litres per day could be brought to the UK in tankers under the proposals. The Financial