KKR acquires majority stake in broadband provider Hyperoptic in £500m deal October 14, 2019 Global investment firm KKR has acquired a majority stake in the UK’s largest residential gigabit broadband provider. KKR bought the stake from funds managed by investment firm Newlight Partners and Mubadala, the UAE sovereign wealth fund. The companies have not announced the details of the deal, but it is understood to be worth £500m. Read [...]
Sophos shares jump as it announces £3bn US private equity buyout October 14, 2019 Cyber security group Sophos shares spiked this morning as it announced it is to be bought out by a US private equity firm, in a deal that values it at £3.1bn. Thoma Bravo said this morning it would take Sophos private, as it dives deeper into the booming cyber security sector. Read more: Sophos share [...]
DEBATE: Are great startups always about having a great idea? October 14, 2019 Are great startups always about having a great idea? Lily Covington, senior strategist at commercial strategy firm Cruxy & Co., says YES. Marketing guru and Silicon Valley mastermind Guy Kawasaki famously said “ideas are easy, implementation is hard”. But while ideas may be easy, truly great ideas are anything but. In the fast-paced and saturated [...]
Revolut in bid to raise £1.2bn and become Europe’s most valuable fintech firm October 12, 2019 Fintech firm Revolut is seeking to raise £1.2bn from its investors in the coming months. The British-Based payment firm has hired investment bank JP Morgan to arrange a £395m equity raise and issuance of a £790m convertible loan, according to Sky News. Read more: Martin Gilbert to step down from Stand Life and join Revolut [...]
Mastercard and Visa join Paypal and others in abandoning Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project October 12, 2019 Mastercard, Visa, eBay and Stripe have all pulled out of Facebook’s cryptocurrency project, Libra. It comes a week Paypal announced they were withdrawing from Libra and is a huge blow to the social network’s plans to launch what it envisioned as a global currency. Read more: Paypal become first firm to drop out of Facebook’s [...]
Facebook pays just £28m in UK corporation tax in 2018 after sales worth almost £800m October 11, 2019 Facebook paid just £28m in UK corporation tax in 2018 according to its latest filing at Companies House. This is despite it having recognised sales worth £797m with a gross profit of £763.4m for the year. Read more: OECD targets tech giants as it shakes up global tax rules It is the latest example of [...]
Wework’s European operational losses skyrocket 900 per cent October 11, 2019 Huge rises in staff costs and management fees related to Wework’s stratospheric expansion plans have sunk its internal division to an £80m loss. 2018 filings for Wework International reported an 898 per cent increase in overall losses to £75.9m, up from £7.6m a year earlier. Read more: Goldman Sachs keeps a Wework space to fall [...]
DEBATE: Can technology actually be good for our mental health? October 11, 2019 Can technology actually be good for our mental health? Dr Nick Taylor, clinical phycologist and co-founder of Unmind, says YES. Mental ill-health costs the UK economy between £74bn and £99bn each year. Currently, there is insufficient care and resources readily available to people when they need it most. Technology provides an accessible, scalable means for [...]
Snap reduces overseas losses as revenue doubles October 10, 2019 Snapchat parent firm Snap has narrowed its international losses, as sales from advertising and its Spectacles gadget doubled. Its UK-based entity, which manages all territories outside the US, reported a loss of $312.8m in 2018, down from $447m a year earlier. Meanwhile revenue, which Snap said is “substantially” created by sales of its advertising products, [...]
Dialling down: A quarter of mobile phone users make fewer than five calls a month October 10, 2019 A quarter of mobile phone users in the UK make fewer than five calls per month, while six per cent made no calls at all, new figures have revealed. Moreover, around 60 per cent of those people who did pick up the phone ended the call in under 90 seconds. Read more: Mobile shopping platform [...]