Standard Chartered shares hit 12-year high after income upgrade October 30, 2025 Banking giant Standard Chartered has upgraded its income target for the full-year after its booming wealth business powered profit higher. The FTSE 100 lender posted a pre-tax profit of $1.8bn (£1.36bn) in the three months to September, ahead of the $1.5bn pencilled in by analysts. Shares in the bank jumped to a 12-year high after [...]
Punk Padel and Tough Mudder: It pays for sports to buy into fun innovation October 30, 2025 I am happy to go down any rabbit hole, or country lane, in search of innovation in sport. Driving back from a trail race the other day, I passed a small sign tucked on a grassy verge in deepest Sussex. “Punk Padel”, it seemed to whisper rather than shout, as if conscious it was out [...]
FTSE 100 Live: OpenAI plots IPO, Shell kicks off $3.5bn buyback October 30, 2025 Good morning from the City AM liveblog team. The war of words between banks and private credit ratcheted up on Wednesday, after a trio of bosses from private lenders rounded on claims their industry played a pivotal role in a string of recent debt-related collapses, branding it “misinformation”. During a fiery evidence session in the [...]
Could this be the clearest sign yet that the rich are leaving Britain? October 30, 2025 It’s hard to know quite how many of the super-rich are leaving London. Some say departure numbers are well into four figures so far this year – others that the estimates are overstated. We can’t get a precise number, but one thing is for sure: it’s happening. The anecdotal evidence of high net worth folk [...]
Should Robert Peston really be making adverts for Google? October 30, 2025 “I was struck by some analysis that Google has done that shows that the adoption of artificial intelligence can increase productivity by around 20 per cent,” ITV political editor Robert Peston says. If you weren’t paying close enough attention, you’d be forgiven for missing that Peston’s remarks form part of a new advertising campaign he [...]
‘Sower of chaos’ – Russia behind UK cyberattacks, says Cloudflare boss October 30, 2025 The recent spate of cyberattacks that have crippled British firms is largely being carried out by Russia, which used the outbreak of the conflict in Gaza as a “cover story” to deflect attention, the boss of one of the world’s largest cybersecurity firms has said. Cloudflare chief executive Matthew Prince told City AM that the [...]
Mel Stride rules out electoral pact with Reform October 30, 2025 Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride has insisted the Conservatives will not strike an electoral deal with Reform UK due to their “completely ruinous” economic agenda. In an interview with a new online magazine led by the centre-right think tank Bright Blue, Stride said his party should avoid “indulging in populist politics” and focus on calling out [...]
Business owners still plan staff cuts due to last year’s NICs raid October 30, 2025 Nearly half of business owners are still planning to reduce headcounts in response to Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ £25bn tax hike on employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs), a new survey has indicated, pointing to the long-lasting economic effects of a brutal tax raid in her first Budget. Reeves made sweeping tax hikes last year to fund [...]
The Gulf gamble: American and British law firms racing to Saudi Arabia October 30, 2025 Saudi Arabia is rapidly becoming the focus of global legal attention. But this shift is not merely speculative; it is part of a calculated move by the Kingdom to attract world-class expertise. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia changed its law two years ago to allow foreign law firms to operate independently, as part of its [...]
Is Next still a bellwether for the UK high street? October 30, 2025 Next sailed past its projected sales figures this Autumn, the high street stalwart told markets on Wednesday, despite wider issues in the UK high street. Overall sales rose 10.5 per cent in the 13 weeks to October 25, far above guidance of 4.5 per cent, with international sales growth at 38.8 per cent quarter on [...]