Dominos: Pizza chain announces new chair, higher sales and a dividend increase March 11, 2025 Dominos has announced a new Chair, set to take the role in April, as well as a slight dip in revenue, higher sales and a higher dividend. Sales Dominos Pizza Group, the UK-based subsidiary of Domino’s Pizza Inc, rose two per cent to £1,571.5m in the 52 weeks to December 29, from £1,540.5m last year. [...]
Persimmon: Housebuilder posts uptick in profit amid housing market recovery March 11, 2025 Housebuilder Persimmon has reported an uptick in house completions and profit after two years of steep declines. The York-based company completed 10,664 homes in the year ended December 31, up seven per cent year on year. Revenue from new housing rose £2.86bn from £2.54bn while underlying profit before tax rose 10 per cent to £395.1m. [...]
Kier Group shares tumble despite record orders March 11, 2025 Kier Group shares tumbled this morning despite the firm hiking dividends by a fifth and reporting a record £11bn order backlog. The London-listed group said it would pay investors an interim dividend of 2p, up 20 per cent from last year’s 1.67p. Kier Group’s record £11bn order book rose two per cent year-on-year and means [...]
Tech secretary hails space sector as a ‘launchpad’ for growth March 11, 2025 Science secretary Peter Kyle has hailed the UK space sector‘s recent achievement as proof that the UK is a “launchpad for innovation and investment”. The field has secured £80m more in European Space Agency (ESA) contracts than government contributions in late 2024, the highest return for any ESA member state. This success is set to [...]
Booking.com prone to scammers due to weak security, warns watchdog March 11, 2025 A lack of effective security measures is leaving Booking.com vulnerable to scammers, consumer champion Which? has warned. Which? said the platform suffers from an easily hacked messaging system, failure to remove scam listings, and a lack of identity checks on property owners. The watchdog’s findings, which come as the Online Safety Act‘s illegal codes are [...]
Deloitte names new UK financial services lead March 11, 2025 Deloitte has appointed consulting veteran Suresh Kanwar to head up its financial services division in the UK and join its executive committee. Kanwar previously led the audit and consultancy behemoth’s banking and capital markets team, and his new new role makes him one of the 13 most senior figures in Deloitte’s 27,000-strong army of UK [...]
Buy-to-let market ‘resilient’ despite fears of landlord exodus March 11, 2025 UK landlords are more optimistic than previously thought about buy-to-let as the market gears up to absorb economic and regulatory challenges, according to a new survey. A survey of 300 UK landlords has found that a third of landlords plan to expand their portfolios this year, while 43 per cent expect yields to improve. “It [...]
Confidence boost for UK shoppers fails to improve high street retail sales March 11, 2025 High street retail sales continued to fall in February despite a confidence boost for UK consumers, a survey has found. Overall, retail sales increased by 1.1 per cent in February, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).However, this was driven by food sales, which grew 2.3 per cent year-on-year. Non-food sales were flat in February, [...]
Labour’s growth agenda? Necessary but not sufficient. March 11, 2025 Ministers will be deeply frustrated at the lack of economic growth, though they ought not to be surprised. Their own missteps have been well covered in this newspaper, and week after week new survey data reveals the extent to which government policies have dampened spirits, reduced hiring and spooked confidence. However, while their opening salvo [...]
What’s in the government’s new planning reform bill? March 10, 2025 The government has promised to unleash the biggest building boom in a generation through its wide-ranging planning reform bill, which will head into parliament today. Drafted in response to a crisis which has seen a massive shortage of affordable housing, as well as rising house prices and rents to due undersupply, the bill intends to [...]