Business

There will be a lot of positive talk from the chancellor when he delivers his autumn statement on Wednesday, but this will be a fiscal event full of illusory gains. The government is on track to borrow less than previously forecast, which will give rise to a fantasy that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has more space

A court hearing to liquidate a Barclay family holding companies in order to smooth a sale of The Daily Telegraph is poised to be adjourned after a last-gasp offer to repay more than £1bn to Lloyds Banking Group. Sky News understands that a hearing scheduled to take place in the British Virgin Islands on Monday

Jeremy Hunt has said there is the chance to lower taxes in the autumn statement next week, arguing the economy had “turned a corner”. Ahead of Wednesday’s financial announcement, the chancellor said that as inflation had halved over the year, “this is the moment” to focus on growth. But he argued that there is a

Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Glazer family are on the brink of finalising a $33-a-share deal that will see the petrochemicals tycoon acquiring a 25% stake in Manchester United Football Club. Sky News can reveal that months of talks between the Ineos billionaire and the Red Devils’ controlling investors for the last 18 years have

In the narrow lanes around Aldham in Essex the countryside is close to the English ideal. On an unseasonably warm mid-October day the fields recede to a low horizon, broken only by hedgerows and the spire of the parish church, the tallest landmark this side of Suffolk. If National Grid has its way it won’t

Hotel Chocolat has agreed to a £534m takeover offer from Mars, the maker of goods from Snickers bars to Pedigree dog food. The UK specialist chocolatier retailer said the offer represented a 170% premium to its London share price of 139p and the deal would allow its brand to expand internationally This breaking news story

The chancellor has been called on to freeze business rates and to extend reliefs as business lobbyists warn a failure to do so risks jobs, businesses and the future of the high street. A host of hospitality groups have also asked for an extension of and increase in the retail, hospitality and leisure (RHL) business

Manchester United has confirmed its chief executive of two years, Richard Arnold, “has decided to step down” as part of a “management transition”. The development was revealed shortly after Sky News reported that Mr Arnold would be replaced by the club’s general counsel, Patrick Stewart, on an interim basis. The change is taking place as

The chancellor has agreed to address the CBI’s first public event since the business lobbying group was plunged into crisis earlier this year. Sky News has learnt that Jeremy Hunt will be among the keynote speakers at the CBI’s annual conference in London next week, just seven months after declaring that there was “no point”

Roughly 500 jobs are to go at pharma giant Pfizer’s Kent site. The roles are to be cut as Pfizer is discontinuing its pharmaceutical sciences small molecule (PSSM) operations at Sandwich in Kent, the company confirmed to Sky News. It’s part of a company-wide cost-cutting program, Pfizer said. Affected staff were notified on Tuesday morning

House prices have grown in 70 local authorities across Britain despite an overall UK-wide fall, according to the latest analysis from a subsidiary of the UK’s largest mortgage lender. The area with the largest increase was Powys in Wales, which is Wales’s largest and least densely populated county, containing most of Bannau Brycheiniog, formerly known

Royal Mail has been fined £5.6m by the industry regulator for missing targets covering both first and second-class deliveries. Ofcom said that for the 2022-23 financial year – a time when it was hit by 18 days of strikes by frontline workers – Royal Mail’s reported performance results showed that it had only delivered 73.7%

An infrastructure investor owned by Schroders, the fund management behemoth, is in pole position to buy a solar farms operator that received hundreds of millions of pounds from a scandal-hit local authority. Sky News understands that Schroders Greencoat has become the leading contender to acquire Toucan Energy, which collapsed into administration exactly a year ago.

Nigel Farage will next week begin a formal legal fight with NatWest Group and its former boss as he seeks millions of pounds in damages over the debanking scandal which escalated into a crisis for the state-backed lender. Sky News has learnt that Mr Farage, the former UKIP leader, has instructed London-based Grosvenor Law to

Ian King speaks to the chief economic strategist at Netwealth about the latest GDP figures. Plus, we hear from our city editor Mark Kleinman, about the former head of NatWest who’s losing out on 10-million pounds of a potential payout. Listen and subscribe to The Ian King Business Podcast here Advertisement

£7.6m is a lot of money to leave on the table by anyone’s standards. NatWest Group, the taxpayer-backed bank, hopes that headline-grabbing number will persuade stakeholders that it has taken a tough line on the severance package handed to Dame Alison Rose, its former chief executive. Indeed, Dame Alison herself might claim that she herself

Families “should feel optimistic” that the worst of the cost-of-living crisis is over, the chancellor has told Sky News. Acknowledging households have “suffered enormously” from energy, food and fuel inflation in the last 18 months, Jeremy Hunt said they should now feel some relief despite the UK economy slowing to a halt in the third

Former NatWest boss Dame Alison Rose is to lose £7.6m of her payout as the bank group seeks to draw a line under the debanking row sparked by the closure of Nigel Farage’s Coutts accounts. However, she will still receive around £1.7m. Dame Alison stepped down in late July after admitting she discussed the former

The number of mortgage holders who have fallen significantly behind on their repayments has risen by 18% over the past year, according to industry data that suggests landlords may be struggling most. UK Finance said 87,930 homeowner mortgages were in arrears during the third quarter of the year – up 7% on the previous three

A regulator has outlined concerns about the “intensity of competition” between fuel retailers. In its first monitoring update since finding that drivers were overcharged by supermarkets last year, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was yet to receive crucial data on fuel margins covering September and October. It said that while margins –