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It is a mark of Nicola Sturgeon’s impact on Scottish and UK politics that the contest to succeed her as Scotland’s first minister has drawn interest far beyond British shores. Yet the outgoing Scottish National party leader’s achievement in entrenching support for independence at a little under 50 per cent was not matched by her

Saudi Aramco has agreed to acquire 10 per cent of a Chinese oil refiner for $3.6bn in the second in a pair of deals set to strengthen the relationship between the Middle Eastern state oil company and its biggest market. Under the arrangement with Shenzhen-listed Rongsheng Petrochemical Co, Saudi Aramco will supply 480,000 barrels a

Bob Iger’s plan to attack streaming-boom era spending at Walt Disney will pick up steam this week as the company begins the process of cutting about 7,000 jobs. In a memo to staff on Monday, Iger said the cuts would start this week and last until the early summer, with the bulk taking place in

The latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence could lead to the automation of a quarter of the work done in the US and eurozone, according to research by Goldman Sachs. The investment bank said on Monday that “generative” AI systems such as ChatGPT, which can create content that is indistinguishable from human output, could spark a

A US financial regulator has accused Binance and its chief executive Changpeng Zhao of operating illegally in the country, in a lawsuit that seeks fines and an injunction against the world’s largest crypto trading exchange. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission alleged in a civil complaint filed on Monday that much of Binance’s reported trading volume

Last week’s round of interest rate rises was bad news for anyone needing to refinance debt. But if you are a business with a defined benefit pension scheme, you may well be quietly pleased about the upward march of rates. Most such schemes in the private sector, which pay out a pre-determined pension based on

The global economy is in danger of suffering a lost decade of growth, which would be even more severe if the current financial turmoil sparked a global recession, according to new research from the World Bank. The international organisation warned on Monday that the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were set to create lasting damage to economic performance, undermining

Humza Yousaf has won the race to replace Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the Scottish National party, paving the way for him to become Scotland’s first minister. The 37-year old health secretary won 52.1 per cent of the vote of SNP members in the second round of voting, beating Kate Forbes, the finance secretary, who

Elliott Management has scrapped plans to nominate directors to the board of Salesforce after the software group delivered a better than expected earnings report in March and promised to focus on profits. In a joint statement released on Monday, Elliott said it would not nominate rival directors to the Salesforce board at its upcoming annual

Shares of First Citizens Bank surged almost 50 per cent on Monday morning following news it would buy much of the failed Silicon Valley Bank. The deal, the second acquisition of a failed bank in as many weeks brokered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, buoyed shares of other midsized banks that have come under

Investors have scaled back their expectations of global interest rate rises in the aftermath of banking sector turmoil, with market indicators suggesting that the period of rapid increases has come to an abrupt end. The pricing of derivatives products, such as interest rate swaps, indicates investors believe many of world’s major central banks will not

Welcome to Trade Secrets. Now that the global banking crisis is definitely over, no worries there, we can go back to looking at cheerier subjects. Today I’m asking if the rash of sovereign debt crises involving China as a creditor are going to get fixed soon, and whether a non-binding declaration attached to an EU

While Xi Jinping was being received with great pomp and ceremony in Moscow last week, Fumio Kishida was 500 miles away in Kyiv. The fact that the president of China and the prime minister of Japan paid simultaneous and competing visits to the capitals of Russia and Ukraine underlines the global significance of the Ukraine

Vaccine maker BioNTech has forecast a worse than expected slump in revenues this year as demand for coronavirus immunisation wanes, underlining the scale of the challenge facing companies that enjoyed windfalls from the pandemic.  The German biotech company, Pfizer’s partner for the Covid-19 vaccine, said on Monday that revenues from Covid vaccines would drop to

There’s a growing sense that Switzerland probably didn’t have a rock-solid legal foundation to wipe out Credit Suisse’s $16bn of AT1s — at least on a narrow interpretation on the bond documentation clauses. Not everyone agrees of course, but even the ECB, BoE EBA came out and pretty explicitly criticised it. That’s presumably why FINMA

The chair of Saudi National Bank, Ammar Alkhudairy, has resigned citing personal reasons after the kingdom’s largest lender was thrust into the limelight amid turmoil at Credit Suisse. The chief executive, Saeed Al Ghamdi, will replace Alkhudairy as chair, the bank said on Monday. Talal Al-Khereiji becomes acting chief executive. In a television interview this

European equities rose at the open on Monday, led by financial stocks such as Deutsche Bank, as investors grew more reassured over the health of the banking industry. The region-wide Stoxx 600 rose 0.9 per cent, Germany’s Dax and France’s Cac 40 each added 0.8 per cent and the UK’s FTSE 100 gained 0.6 per

Israel’s president Isaac Herzog has implored the government to halt a bitterly contested judicial overhaul, warning that the polarisation it had caused had put “our security, economy, society” under threat. Mass protests erupted across the country overnight with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sacked his defence

When the Islamic regime called, hundreds of thousands rallied. In cities across Iran, women, mostly in traditional black chador body cloaks, joined huge crowds of men carrying banners, portraits of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and national flags to celebrate the 44th anniversary of the 1979 revolution. The mass gatherings last month offered a chance

A “Swiss finish” was traditionally the description given to the extra layer of financial safeguards demanded by Switzerland’s bank regulators — reflective of the high quality the country has traditionally been famed for, from its watches to its banking sector. The demise of Credit Suisse has lent the term an unfortunate new meaning. But the

Conventional wisdom tells us the technology boom is over. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has sent a chill through the investment community, and the tech sector has seen a correction as interest rates have risen. But I’d argue we may be about to enter a new golden age of technological innovation and investment. The