The UK energy regulator Ofgem has lowered the energy price cap by almost £1,000 for a typical home, but consumers will still end up with higher bills from April as the government reduces subsidies to households. The price cap, which governs the amount paid for gas and electricity bills for typical usage, will fall to
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Good morning. Rishi Sunak hopes to unveil a deal between the UK and the EU to reform the Northern Ireland protocol and end the simmering disputes between the UK, the EU and the US. But no matter what happens, he faces a backlash from within his party. Some thoughts on how he is trying to
The head of UniCredit’s remuneration committee resigned following unsubstantiated allegations of leaking from the board, just weeks ahead of the proposal of a new pay package for chief executive Andrea Orcel, raising questions about corporate governance at the Italian lender. Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia — the former chief executive of UK lender Virgin Money who joined
It was three days after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine that the EU realised that it too must go to war. At an emergency meeting, Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, made the case to anxious foreign ministers from the bloc’s 27 member states that it was the moment to do something previously considered impossible:
The world of ETF academia is a rarefied one. But the spats it hosts are no less heated than those in the better known field of macroeconomics. This month, a paper by a quartet of academics from three business schools — Columbia, Chicago Booth and Pennsylvania — set off a row about the niche issue
The writer is chair of Rockefeller International The recent surge in tech stocks has true believers buzzing that the downturn of late last year is over and the boom of the past decade is back. But the opposite case is more likely. This surge had all the hallmarks of an echo bubble — a brief
Major US employers from fast-food chains to arms manufacturers are reporting a dramatic improvement in hiring conditions despite official data showing unemployment at its lowest level for decades. Senior executives across a host of S&P 500 companies gave optimistic updates on the labour market in recent quarterly earnings reports. Their commentary could reassure investors concerned
The majority of FTSE 250 bosses believe that UK-listed companies are vulnerable to foreign takeovers this year amid growing expectations that M&A activity will pick up as economic conditions improve. British broker Numis found that “compressed” valuations meant that corporates were increasingly focused on their own vulnerability in the eventuality of a bid, according to
Andrew Griffith, City of London minister, has raised concerns that flagship reforms to stop consumers being ripped off by financial services companies could damage the sector and trigger a wave of spurious law suits, putting him on a collision course with the UK’s chief financial regulator. Griffith has criticised the consumer duty, a key measure
If you are reading this in the northern hemisphere — and subscribe to meteorological definition of the seasons — the good news is that we are rapidly heading into spring. And like the promise of warmer and longer days (not to mention daffodils for St David’s Day on Wednesday), there is some reason for cheer
The UK economic outlook for this year has improved, with analysts forecasting a smaller contraction in output than they had previously because of falling energy prices and better than anticipated business and consumer sentiment. In December and January, economists expected gross domestic product to drop 1 per cent this year, according to data from Consensus
Rishi Sunak is poised to unveil a Brexit deal with the EU on Monday that will overhaul Northern Ireland’s trading arrangements and end a bitter dispute between the two sides. Although the UK prime minister plans to seal an agreement with Brussels, he still faces a political battle to win over Eurosceptic Conservative MPs and
The chief executive of Deutsche Telekom has called obtaining a stake in BT the “biggest mistake” he ever made, saying: “I want my money back.” Tim Höttges told the Financial Times that he regretted a 2015 deal that saw the German group take a £5.6bn stake in its British counterpart, which has since lost almost
A senior Republican legislator said that China was considering sending 100 drones and other lethal weapons to Russia, as US officials warn that Beijing may escalate its support for Moscow in the Ukraine conflict. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House foreign affairs committee, said the US was increasingly concerned about Beijing’s willingness to
Indonesia is seeking assurances from the UK that it will secure a share of any future financial settlement stemming from a British corruption investigation into aircraft maker Bombardier after Jakarta was left out of a deal reached with Airbus three years ago. Cahyo Muzhar, director-general of legal administrative affairs at Indonesia’s ministry of law and
The house building industry has warned that the number of new properties completed each year in England could slump to its lowest level since the second world war due to a “perfect storm” of government policies and higher mortgage rates. The Home Builders Federation estimates that changes by ministers to England’s planning framework and the
Indian business tycoon Prateek Gupta offered to pay Trafigura $15mn using financing from a Mauritian bank under scrutiny for its ties to the accused fraudster, according to court documents obtained by the Financial Times. Trafigura, the world’s largest private metals trader, this month secured a $625mn freezing order against Gupta and his business empire in
China Renaissance said its missing founder Bao Fan was “co-operating in an investigation” with Chinese authorities, more than a week after the investment bank disclosed it had been unable to contact him. In a terse stock exchange filing late on Sunday in Hong Kong, the company said its board had “become aware that Mr Bao
President Joe Biden’s speech in Warsaw was thickly coated in the kind of idealistic rhetoric many western Europeans discreetly roll their eyes at. Of Vladimir Putin, he said: “He thought autocrats like himself were tough and leaders of democracies were soft . . . And then, he met the iron will of America and the nations everywhere that refused
Gautam Adani’s business empire has had more than $145bn wiped from its value in the month since a US short seller alleged fraud, laying bare the battle the Indian tycoon still faces in regaining the confidence of investors. The sell-off triggered by Hindenburg Research, which accused Adani of stock manipulation and accounting fraud, has erased
LinkedIn has been hit by a rise in sophisticated recruitment scams, as fraudsters seek to take advantage of the trend towards remote working and widespread lay-offs across the tech sector. Jobseekers on the world’s largest professional network are being defrauded out of money after taking part in fake recruitment processes set up by scammers who