Business

The owner of British Airways has reported a sharp rise in profits amid soaring demand for trips and a fall in the cost of fuel. International Airlines Group (IAG) said its operating profit for the first three months of the year was €68m (£58.5m) – above expectations and up from €9m (£7.7m) during the same

The UK economy is no longer in recession, according to official figures. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by a better-than-expected 0.6% between January and March, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. Economists in a Reuters poll had predicted the figure would be 0.4%. A recession, which is defined as two consecutive three-month periods where

How soon is too soon? That’s the question exercising members of the Bank of England‘s monetary policy committee (MPC) at the moment. All nine members know that interest rates, currently at 5.25%, will have to be cut in the coming months. After all, high interest rates represent a brake on the economy and it’s becoming

People are having to play “pharmacy bingo” – going from shop to shop to find stocks – as medicine shortages are worsening, experts have said. Health leaders say some patients are even having to “ration” their drugs, with a new poll suggesting shortages are a “daily occurrence” for many of England’s pharmacies. Treatments for ADHD,

A “nationwide issue” with e-gates at airports has been resolved after causing travel chaos across the country, the Home Office has said. It said the system was back up and running and there was “no indication of malicious cyber activity”. Social media images and footage showed long queues at the passport scanning gates at several

The Russian state has been making more money from its oil and gas industry in the past three months than in any comparable period since the early days of the Ukraine invasion, it has emerged. The figures underline that despite the imposition of various sanctions on fossil fuel exports from Russia since February 2022, the

The boss of P&O Ferries – known for its fire-and-rehire of nearly 800 workers – has said he could not live on the less than £5-per-hour some of his staff are paid. The ferry company is paying employees an average of £5.20 an hour, two years after making 786 people redundant, and rehiring cheaper workers,

The government is “gaslighting” the public about the state of the economy, the shadow chancellor will say on Tuesday. Rachel Reeves is set to attack the Conservatives in a speech in the City of London, as the opposition takes the fight to the government on their own turf ahead of the general election. Running a

An estate agency group backed by the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group is being put up for sale in the latest sign of corporate activity in the sector. Sky News understands that LDC has hired bankers from Clearwater International to oversee a sale of Lomond Group. A process is expected to kick off

The world’s second-largest steel company has warned the government that a planning verdict due this week could lead to a key division quitting the UK. Sky News has seen a letter sent by ArcelorMittal to Michael Gove, the levelling-up secretary, in which it says that a decision to allow the closure and redevelopment of part

Ordinary investors will be awarded ‘bonus’ shares in NatWest Group if they hold onto stock they acquire in the taxpayer-backed bank, under a plan expected to be finalised by ministers later this month. Sky News has learnt key details of the options being explored by the Treasury for a multibillion pound retail offer of NatWest shares,

Entain, the FTSE 100 gambling group, has been rebuffed by the former bosses of bookies Coral and Skybet in its hunt for a new chief executive. Sky News has learnt that Entain, which owns Ladbrokes, approached Andy Hornby, who now runs Wagamama’s parent company, and Richard Flint, who holds a portfolio of roles, about the

A former top Post Office lawyer has been accused of telling the Horizon IT inquiry a “big fat lie” over his knowledge of a bug in the system that could have stopped wrongful prosecutions of sub-postmasters in their tracks. Jarnail Singh was a senior in-house lawyer and subsequently head of criminal law at the Post

Official figures have raised fears of a deepening public sector drag on the the UK’s economic recovery from recession. Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that productivity in the public sector, dominated by education and healthcare, deteriorated between the third and fourth quarters of 2023. It measured a 1.0% decline over the

HSBC is set to become the latest major international bank to remove the European Union-imposed bonus cap that had applied to its UK-based workers. The London headquartered lender’s shareholders voted in favour of scrapping the limit at its Annual General Meeting, the company said. The move was recommended by the board after the UK government

Tech giant Apple has recorded the biggest drop in iPhone sales since the early months of the COVID pandemic. Sales for January to March were down 10% on the same period last year – something not seen since the 2020 iPhone model was delayed due to lockdown factory closures. Overall, Apple earned $90.8bn (£72.4bn) in

Goldman Sachs is removing a cap on bonuses for London-based staff, paving the way for it to resume making multimillion pound payouts to its best-performing traders and dealmakers. Sky News can exclusively reveal that the Wall Street banking giant notified its UK employees on Thursday that it had decided to abolish the existing pay ratio

Chinese manufacturers receive nine times more government support than their Western counterparts, according to calculations from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which help explain the country’s complete dominance in so many sectors, from solar panels and batteries to steel. The figures produced by the OECD show that Chinese businesses benefit from government

The US central bank, known as the Fed, has again kept interest rates high – at 5.25% to 5.5%. It comes despite the bank signaling in January that interest rate cuts were around the corner. Money latest: Bitcoin suffers nightmare month – and it’s just got worse Progress in bringing down rates and making borrowing

Shifting expectations for UK interest rate cuts have contributed to a dip in house price growth, according to a closely watched measure. Nationwide reported a 0.4% dip in average property costs last month compared with March, taking the annual rate of growth to 0.6% from 1.6%. The lender’s report said the easing reflected “ongoing affordability