M&A activity declines as investors opt for high-value deals September 5, 2025 UK merger and acquisition (M&A) activity declined in the first half of the year, as investors sought strategic deals amid market volatility. The total deal value of UK M&A declined 12.3 per cent from £65.3bn to £57.3bn according to a report from professional services group PwC. Deal volume also softened with just 1,478 transactions in the [...]
Bank of England ‘under pressure’ to slow bond sales amid market tumult September 5, 2025 The Bank of England should slow its quantitative tightening programme and stop active sales of long-dated bonds entirely in the wake of this week’s bond rout that saw the cost of long-term borrowing soar to its highest level this century, a group of top economists has said. Markets were rocked by a global sell-off in [...]
Rayner’s lawyers: ‘We are being made scapegoats’ September 4, 2025 The law firm used by under-fire Angela Rayner for the purchase of an £800,000 flat in Hove say that they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give the Deputy Prime Minister any tax advice. In a statement issued to The Telegraph, Joanna Verrico, managing director of the family-run firm, said that their procedure is [...]
Premier League spending gap shows why rivals are plotting overseas games September 4, 2025 It’s more than 10 years since Bernard Caiazzo, then the co-president of French club Saint-Etienne, called on Uefa to take steps to curb the rampant financial power of the Premier League. Caiazzo’s warning came after the English top division had just announced its latest record-breaking media rights deal, which he said could see it become [...]
Starmer refuses to say he’ll sack Rayner if she broke ministerial code September 4, 2025 Keir Starmer has refused to confirm that he would sack Angela Rayner as housing secretary – and deputy PM- even if the government’s ethics adviser finds that she has broken the ministerial code. In an interview with the BBC, Starmer said he would “make a decision on what I see” in a report expected to [...]
Young men more likely to use AI to guide investment decisions September 4, 2025 Young men are more likely to use AI to guide their financial decisions compared to older generations and women. Men aged 18-34 are also increasingly likely to turn to AI for financial advice, than older generations, according to wealth management company Handelsbanken. Around a quarter of respondents who used AI admitted it was an alternative [...]
HMRC names barrister in tax avoidance list for first time September 4, 2025 In an unprecedented move, HMRC has added a practising barrister, identified as the ‘designer’ of a tax avoidance scheme, to its list of tax avoidance promoters. Tax barrister Setu Kamal, with 20 years of experience, stands accused of designing four tax avoidance schemes and producing the contract templates crucial to their operation. Those schemes were [...]
Clock ticking on Making Tax Digital as HMRC struggles to win over SMEs September 4, 2025 With six months until nearly 800,000 self-employed people and landlords join Making Tax Digital (MTD) for income tax, HMRC is intensifying efforts to get more taxpayers to test the system. But the numbers so far paint a sobering picture of the challenge ahead for the agency. Data revealed that 2,400 users have joined HMRC’s beta [...]
Trump may face tariff refund ‘nightmare’ September 4, 2025 Donald Trump could face the “nightmare scenario” of being forced to refund the money collected by his tariffs, a leading City advisory firm has told City AM, after a federal court deemed most of them illegal. The court found last Friday that the US President overstepped his office’s powers when he unilaterally announced April’s so-called [...]
Ex-wife of sanctioned former Russian PM wins divorce appeal September 4, 2025 The former Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Potanin, is set to face a multi-billion-pound divorce case in England after his ex-wife won her case at the Court of Appeal today. Natalia Nikolaevna Potanina was married to Potanin for around thirty years before divorcing in Russia in 2014. However, she had argued that the Russian court’s [...]