admin

Asda’s owners are using the proceeds of an earlier asset sale to fund their contribution to the supermarket’s takeover of parts of EG Group, another business they own, in the latest example of financial engineering that has allowed them to limit their cash outlay on the business. Earlier this week, Asda announced a £2.3bn deal

Boiler manufacturers are pushing back against government efforts to force them to rapidly make thousands more heat pumps, in a new flashpoint over the pace of the shift towards lower carbon heating.  The government plans to fine companies from next year unless they meet stringent quotas for heat pump production and installation. But bosses are lobbying

Foremost on the minds of Ukrainians and their friends is the need to win the war. But to delay preparations for what comes afterwards would risk losing the peace. Kyiv is aware of this, and economic plans for a postwar Ukraine are being formulated. The Ukraine recovery conference in London this month will be an

AstraZeneca’s chief executive returned from a recent trip to China exuberant about an “explosion” of biotech companies in the country and the potential for his business to deliver drugs discovered there to the world. Pascal Soriot said the market was “completely open” for pharma investment. “It’s hard to not be impressed by the progress that

China has warned western militaries to stay out of waters and airspace near its borders if they want to avoid dangerous run-ins with the People’s Liberation Army, putting on display the growing risks of unintended conflict as geopolitical competition grows. The blunt message from General Li Shangfu, China’s new defence minister, followed a near collision

China will soon account for less than half of the US’s low-cost imports from Asia for the first time in more than a decade, new data has shown, as western companies shift operations out of the country. According to an annual reshoring index from Kearney, the Chicago-based management consulting firm, US efforts to reduce reliance

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signalled a move to more orthodox economic policies as he unveiled sweeping changes to his cabinet, revamping his financial team and replacing an interior minister known for his hardline rhetoric. Erdoğan shook up several top departments, announcing new finance, foreign and interior ministers in a speech late Saturday. The appointments

Three Israeli soldiers have been shot dead by an Egyptian security official, Israeli and Egyptian authorities said on Saturday, in the worst incident on the countries’ border for more than a decade. Egypt was the first Arab country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel in 1979, and the border has been relatively calm since a

Virtual reality start-ups have pinned their hopes on Apple’s longed-for release of a mixed reality headset becoming a catalyst for a rebound in industry funding. Anticipation is growing that the iPhone maker will host at its annual developer conference on Monday its biggest hardware launch since the iPad in 2010. The headset, with a likely

An Indonesian defence minister has floated a peace plan for Ukraine, triggering fierce criticism from western security officials but praise from China and highlighting the deep divide between the west and global south over Russia’s invasion of its neighbour. In a speech on Saturday at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual defence conference in Singapore, Prabowo

Artificial intelligence tools are “ripe” to disrupt the private banking sector, Amnon Shashua has said, as his new digital bank One Zero prepares to expand its activities outside Israel. Shashua last year launched One Zero — whose investors include Swiss private bank Julius Baer, US private equity group Cerberus and China’s Tencent — as the

When Antony Knights and his wife, Louise Firth, first noticed that their British Airways flight to Berlin from London’s Heathrow airport was listed as delayed, they were neither surprised nor very concerned. But shortly afterwards they and others waiting for the flight, on May 25, were shocked to be told to leave the airport terminal.

How bad was your week? Well fear not. Rajesh Vishwas is here to make you feel better. The Indian government official was recently suspended after he ordered a reservoir to be drained so he could retrieve his mobile phone, which had fallen in when he tried to take a selfie while picnicking with friends. Taking

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday criticised China for conducting risky aerial intercepts over the South China Sea and warned that Washington would not be deterred by dangerous behaviour in the Indo-Pacific region. China was conducting “an alarming number of risky intercepts of US and allied aircraft flying lawfully in international airspace”, Austin said

A train crash in eastern India has killed more than 200 people, officials said, in one of the country’s deadliest railway accidents in decades. At least 233 people were killed and 900 injured in a collision involving multiple trains in the state of Odisha on Friday night, according to the state’s chief secretary Pradeep Jena.