Retail sales plummet as Iran war hits consumer confidence

Retail sales plummeted by 1.3 per cent in April, as Brits cut back on spending amid increasing pressure from the war in Iran.

The huge fall in retail sales volumes in April was the largest since May last year and defied economists’ forecasts of a softer drop. This comes after a 0.6 per cent rise in March, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Retailers are ramping up pressure on Rachel Reeves to cut energy bills and red tape as they face cost inflation from the war in Iran and weakening consumer confidence.

In the three months to April, retail sales rose by 0.5 per cent, driven by the cosmetic and telecoms sectors.

March’s jump in retail sales was driven by motorists stocking up on fuel to protect themselves from rising prices.

Fuel volumes fell in April, as some retailers suggested motorists were conserving fuel.

Fashion sales, particularly for large retailers, performed poorly in April due to falling consumer spend and bad weather.

Consumer confidence fell to a two-year low in April, according to research firm GfK, which found that Brits are stockpiling cash for essentials.

Brits feel strapped for cash

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said the slowdown in retail sales shows that the Iran war is pushing shoppers to rein in their spending.

Harvir Dhillon, economist at the BRC, said: ““Discretionary spend is likely to drop further as the cost of living squeeze worsens.”

The government should prevent further inflation by cutting retailers’ energy bills and slashing taxes on packaging, he said.

Nicholas Found, head of commercial content at Retail Economics, said retailers are being “squeezed on both sides” by the Iran war.

“Ministers are pressing supermarkets to pass through savings and ease pressure on stretched households, yet retailers themselves are contending with rising wages, higher operating costs and margin pressure of their own,” he said.

Justin Parr, chief credit officer at trade finance provider Treyd, said: “UK retail businesses are contending with consumers whose spending power is under huge pressure from the rising cost of living.

“Broader economic data is now pointing towards higher inflation coming down the line along with increasing unemployment, meaning the operating environment is unlikely to get more benign any time soon.”

Iran war impact ‘to last eight months’

On Thursday, Rachel Reeves announced her “Great British Summer Savings” plan, intended to stem the rising cost of living caused by the Iran war and stimulate spending on retailers and other businesses.

The Chancellor said VAT would be cut for children’s food and access to entertainment, including museums and theme parks.

The plans, which Reeves said she will fund by closing a tax loophole used by energy companies, is set to cost the taxpayer £100m.

Last month, chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones warned the economic pain caused by the Middle East conflict could last for eight months after the war ends.

Enhanced Games on metaphorical trial: is the risk worth it for partners?

The Enhanced Games wants to sell itself as the future: faster, louder, richer and finally honest about the drugs elite sport has spent decades pretending do not exist. This weekend it lands in Las Vegas with a simple proposition. Let athletes use performance-enhancing drugs under medical supervision, put big prize money on the table, stream the spectacle and tell the world this is what modern sport really looks like.

But the real drama is not in the pool or on the track. It is in the boardrooms, insurers’ offices and regulators’ inboxes. Because the biggest problem for the Enhanced Games is not whether audiences will watch, it is whether any serious business wants to stand close if there is a fallout.

The organisers have announced their inaugural weightlifting, swimming and track-focused event at Resorts World Las Vegas, with 50 athletes, $25m in prize money and a distribution and streaming plan with Roku now firmly in place. It is a live commercial proposition.

Enhanced Games fragile?

However, that proposition looks fragile. In normal sport, injury risk is part of the game. In a doping-permissive event, risk is not incidental, it is effectively part of the product. If something goes wrong, a claimant will not just say they were injured competing – they will say the business model itself encouraged the conduct that caused the harm. Foreseeability, consent and the adequacy of medical safeguards would move straight to the centre of any dispute.

Then there is the regulatory headache. Enhanced is no longer just promoting an event; it is promoting a wider commercial ecosystem around “science-backed protocols and personalised wellness pathways”, with outside reporting describing the games as a marketing engine for testosterone, peptides and performance medicine that Enhanced is selling on their website. Once sport becomes the shop window for medicines, supplements or telehealth-style optimisation, scrutiny will not come only from sporting bodies. It will come from anyone interested in prescribing, advertising, consumer protection and product liability.

Athletes know that already. The promise of freedom comes with a catch: exclusion. Mainstream sport still runs through governing bodies, qualification systems and anti-doping codes. Those institutions may be unpopular, inconsistent and frequently accused of hypocrisy, but they still control the pathways that matter. World titles, Olympic qualification, sponsor-friendly visibility and the legitimacy that follows from them all sit on one side of the line. The Enhanced Games sits on the other.

Shaky commercial case

That is why the commercial case looks shaky. Sponsors want big audiences, but they also want clear governance, low reputational risk and an exit route if things turn ugly. A competition built around permitted doping offers the exact opposite. Even if viewers tune in out of curiosity, that does not mean blue-chip brands will want their logo beside the experiment. And distribution is no safer – broadcasters and streaming platforms are often willing to flirt with controversy, but not usually with open-ended legal, medical and youth-harm questions. 

And then comes the most unforgiving audience of all: insurers. Insurance markets can price many risks, but they dislike uncertainty wrapped in controversy. A sporting event that openly embraces substances associated with injury, regulatory complexity and reputational harm is hazardous. Cover may exist, but on strict terms, with exclusions, elevated premiums and endless scrutiny around what was prescribed, who supervised it and whether any of it complied with the relevant rules. 

The smartest thing about the Enhanced Games is that it understands modern attention and the sports media. The weakest thing about it is that attention is not the same as legitimacy. You can build a spectacle in Las Vegas. You can sell subscriptions and generate some headlines. But building a durable sports business is different. For that you need insurers, broadcasters, sponsors, regulators, medical professionals and athletes to believe the risk is containable. Right now, that looks like the hardest event on the programme.

Rufus Scholefield is an Associate at Howard Kennedy

As it happened: Stocks jump on peace hopes; Reeves hit by falling retail sales and surge in borrowing

Good morning and welcome back to the City AM liveblog.

Oil prices remain volatile and heightened as peace talks in the Middle East continue to run into stumbling blocks.

Brent crude futures were up to $104 this morning following reports that Iran’s Supreme Leader was ordering for the nation’s enriched uranium reserves to remain in the country.

This marked a major blow to hopes of a deal between the US and Iran, with the White House viewing dismantling Tehran’s nuclear program as a central demand.

The pressure on the oil market made for some choppy trading in the FTSE 100 and global stock markets, even as oil prices were actually down for the week.

There remains some hope a deal is in sight after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there were “some good signs” that a deal was on the horizon, though he added that he doesn’t “want to be overly optimistic”.

Rubio said the US was dealing with a system that “itself is a little fractured”.

Beyond Iran’s nuclear program, another dividing point rests on the Strait of Hormuz, which has been the biggest driver of surging oil prices after the narrow waterway – where around a fifth of the world’s oil supply flows through – has been blocked since the conflict began 12 weeks ago

Rubio said that any diplomatic deal would be “unfeasible” if Iran imposes a toll on the Strait of Hormuz.

“No one in ​the world is in favour of the tolling system,” he said. “It can’t happen. ​It would be unacceptable.

“⁠It would make ⁠a diplomatic deal unfeasible if they were to continue ‌to pursue that. So it’s a threat to the world if they were ‌trying to do that, and it’s completely illegal.”

Iran is understood to be weighing up the latest peace proposal sent to the regime from the US.

We’ll be bringing you the latest on this and more.

Here’s a few of our top headlines this morning

    Bilbao, Amsterdam, Milan: Where should Champions Cup rugby go next?

    The best thing about the Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup finals weekend is its location: Bilbao.

    It is not the first time the two premier continental fixtures have ventured to El Botxo – the San Mames Stadium hosted Leinster’s victory over Racing 92 in 2018 and Cardiff’s Challenge Cup win over Gloucester a day prior.

    But amid myriad stadiums across the British Isles and France, it is great to see the organisers, European Professional Club Rugby, venture to pastures new.

    The sevens game in Spain is thriving, Barcelona’s Camp Nou has hosted Top 14 matches and the Iberian peninsula has been flirting with a Rugby World Cup bid.

    It got me thinking: where else should the Champions Cup final be headed?

    Italy

    Next year the pair of trophies are off to Lyon but beyond that I think we should finally get European finals in Italy.

    Whether it be at the Stadio Olimpico, another Serie A arena or a mixture of the two to support the vastly different attendance figures the two finals could draw, it feels right that Italy gets the premier final at some point.

    Milan would be epic, too. Imagine getting the San Siro filled with rugby nuts ahead of its decommissioning. It would go a long way to support a potential Italian Rugby World Cup bid too.

    Italy’s three Nations Championship fixtures this autumn are in Turin (South Africa), Genoa (Argentina), and Udine (Fiji) so EPCR will get a good look at those. Naples should be in the mix too.

    Amsterdam

    There were murmurs a couple of years ago that the Dutch city could play host to the Champions Cup final but that never materialised.

    The second tier South African Cheetahs actually host their home matches in the Netherlands, so it is not entirely out of the question.

    But this would be rugby really trying to break new ground. Major positives include the airport being a huge European hub and the city being reachable by train for much of mainland Europe and the UK.

    But it would heavily rely on tourist fans – which could cut into EPCR’s marketing budget.

    Champions Cup final in Germany?

    I do think EPCR could get pretty radical and try to go somewhere completely beyond the usual scope of ideas, and one of Munich, Lisbon or Prague would meet that criteria.

    With Munich, which has recently ventured into hosting NFL matches, there is a casual fanbase there that will want to watch any live sport – as we saw with recent athletics championships hosted in the city.

    It’s also famed for its beer halls and ability to generate an atmosphere – perfect for ovalball.

    As for Prague, it has hosted major football finals and it is a destination city that rugby could head into. Czechia is versatile, and this year has been, or will be, host of skiing world cups, biathlons, athletics, biking and canoeing. Rugby must get on its calendar.

    The use of a stadium in Lisbon would have a similar influence on rugby as Bilbao. The Iberian peninsula is ripe for the taking when it comes to rugby, with the sport increasingly heading south.

    I love that rugby is back in Spain this weekend. But I cannot wait for EPCR to take a risk and head somewhere new. It would be a great experience for fans and a vote of confidence in the growth of the game – as long as they don’t host one in South Africa.

    Former England Sevens captain Ollie Phillips is the founder of Optimist Performance. Follow Ollie @OlliePhillips11

    Business doesn’t want a ‘partnership’ with the state

    Threatening to cap supermarket prices shows this Labour government views business as a mark, not a partner, says Elliot Keck

    Former US President Ronald Reagan once said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help'”. The modern equivalent is surely “we want to build a new partnership between business and government.” 

    Let’s look at the document titled ‘A New Partnership‘ produced for Labour while they were in opposition, produced by former Conservative adviser Iain Anderson. It called for such a partnership to be based on “clarity, consistency, courtesy, collaboration, capability, confidence.” Because who needs a serious strategy for economic growth when you have such alliterative flair?

    What has this partnership with business looked like in reality? Let’s look at the most unambiguous example of the success of the free market within the United Kingdom: the supermarket industry. The wealth of options available, the intensity of the competition, means Brits have one of the lowest spends in the western world of household income on groceries. A look at data from the USDA Economic Research Service shows that in 2023 Brits spent 8.7 per cent of their incomes on groceries, compared to almost 10 per cent for Canadians and Australians, around 12 per cent for the Belgians, Finns, Norwegians and Danes and around 16 per cent for the Japanese. All countries, bearing in mind, with higher GDP per capita than us. It’s pretty much the last affordable thing about this country.

    And how is Rachel Reeves choosing to partner with this unparalleled success story? Threatening supermarkets with price caps. Really. Now in return the government has offered to ease regulations. An exquisite example of the nature of government.

    Government is a protection racket

    Because the actual relationship between government and business, and something Andy Burnham needs to learn pronto, is more akin to a racket. If the government has identified regulations it is happy to cut, why does it have to be in exchange for something? Just cut the damn regulations and give business a break.

    And this threat to take away the price setting power of supermarkets follows the taking away of the ability of supermarkets, and other businesses, to set their own pay structure. This week is that Tesco lost its Court of Appeal bid over its equal pay case, whereby companies like Tesco are being forced to equalise pay between, for example, between warehouse workers and customer assistants. 

    These equal pay claims, run by law firms like KP Law and Leigh Day, are a burgeoning part of the UK’s booming consumer-facing class action market. Law firms offer all manner of claims the man on the street can sign up to, whether that be equal pay, data breaches or competition abuses. 

    But these cases aren’t just bad for the businesses being pursued. And they’re not even just a classic example of the unproductive part of the economy squeezing the productive part ever more. 

    They’re driving terrible real life outcomes as businesses spend money on defending claims rather than hiring people or creating the products and services people want to buy. And that’s not even mentioning the chaos it is causing in local government. 

    This is what partnering with government has looked like for decades. More and more regulation, combined with higher taxes, soaring energy costs, increasing costs of employment and now crippling waves of legal action. It ends up with the government threatening to take away not just the pay but even the pricing policies of companies as seen this week. The only groups benefitting are class action law firms and of course, as always, the public sector. 

    Yet an analysis in The Guardian this week described one facet of Manchesterism, Andy Burnham’s economic vision, as “a closer partnership between the state and business to spread the proceeds of wealth.”  If Andy Burnham is to be the next Prime Minister, he needs to recognise that business doesn’t need a new partnership, it needs a liberator. 

    Elliot Keck is a Westminster city councillor and political commentator

    A Cut Above: How Jermyn Street continues to redefine the art of dressing well

    The Crown Estate is ensuring Jermyn Street’s continued relevance as a cornerstone of British menswear by guiding its evolution into a blended retail, hospitality, and experiential destination that integrates its established heritage brands with new, contemporary labels

    Traditional luxury fashion destinations are sometimes seen as relics of a more formal time, struggling to stay relevant as dress codes relax and shopping habits shift. But that narrative misses something vital: the places that endure aren’t those resistant to change, but those that evolve while holding their distinctive identity. 

    As retail adapts to shifting consumer behaviour and rising operational pressures, destinations that evolve are the ones that continue to drive footfall, spend and long-term value.

    As formal dress codes have softened, men’s style has become more versatile and less prescriptive. For Jermyn Street – a cornerstone of traditional British menswear– the question is not whether to change, but how to do so while retaining what gives it its character. As the long-term steward of St James’s, The Crown Estate plays a central role in shaping how that shift takes place.

    Brands steeped in history are still key to this future-focused strategy. Built on generations of expertise, there are tailors, shirtmakers and cordwainers on Jermyn Street who have faced countless cycles of not only fashion, but also political and economic transition. These names are still responding to trends and consumer needs, meeting the latest shifts in style by differentiating products and upgrading store layouts.  

    Brands like Joseph Cheaney & Sons and Sunspel demonstrate the momentum that considered modernisation can bring. By reimagining store fit outs to create immersive spaces that act as a story-telling device, labels can innovate, meet moving expectations and respect their past. The growth of Sunspel underlines the success of this strategy – expanding from a 500 sq ft unit to a 3,000 sq ft flagship on Jermyn Street – emphasising the importance of historic brands to The Crown Estate’s portfolio. 

    A new generation

    Alongside these established names, a new generation of brands is also shaping the area’s future. These are redefining classic British menswear by blending traditional craft with a contemporary mindset. Newer independent labels from the world’s first female master tailor Kathryn Sargent to shirt-maker Emma Willis and workwear specialists Laird Utility, are also reshaping modern British tailoring in the area.  

    By bringing in new brands that work seamlessly with the area’s stalwarts, The Crown Estate is extending its reputation and enhancing its role as a magnet for overseas visitors. This is reflected by a growing presence of global shoppers, with 13 per cent of visits to Jermyn Street coming from international visitors in the first three months of 2026, compared to seven per cent in the same period last year. Continual evolution – bringing together heritage and the best of modern British brands – is central to this.

    SIRPLUS, a sustainable modern British menswear brand, shows this in practice. Initially joining The Crown Estate as a pop-up at Prince’s Arcade, SIRPLUS has grown within St James’s. The brand diversified further by opening Compane, its own coffee shop in Prince’s Arcade, reflecting the growing importance of social and experiential retail. Compane reflects a broader shift: Jermyn Street is no longer just about dressing well, but about creating a destination experience.

    Jermyn Street’s wider retail and hospitality offer, beyond its traditional menswear base, is central to its continued relevance. From heritage perfumery Floris which has traded on the street for nearly 300 years to cheesemonger Paxton & Whitfield, these complementary brands broaden the appeal of the destination and create a more layered, engaging experience for its 13.5 million annual visitors.

    Restaurants play an equally important role. Institutions such as Wiltons, Rowley’s and Franco’s have long been part of the street’s fabric, but their significance goes beyond heritage. Food and drink are not an add-on, but a core driver of footfall and dwell time – extending activity from breakfast into the evening and reinforcing Jermyn Street as a destination that works throughout the day.

    Maintaining the area’s position as a cornerstone of British menswear now depends on more than fashion alone. It requires a destination that works collectively, blending retail, hospitality and experience to sustain relevance throughout the day and into the evening.

    Jermyn Street’s strength is that it is not standing still. By supporting established names, welcoming new ones and strengthening the St James’s offer, The Crown Estate is helping the area adapt without losing what defines it, reinforcing the West End as one of the world’s most compelling places to live, work and spend time.

    Tim Allibone is head of portfolio management – St James’s, The Crown Estate

    Employment Rights Act will turbocharge creative interview techniques

    Driven by the upcoming Employment Rights Act, which grants unfair dismissal rights to new starters after July 1, 2026, businesses are expected to increase the use of creative vetting methods – like Duolingo’s “taxi driver test” – but this exposes them to legal risks of inadvertently causing discrimination or generating a costly perception of unfairness among candidates, says Chris Deeley

    Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn recently hit the news following a comment on The Burnouts Podcast that the company had turned down an otherwise promising candidate for CFO because they had been “mean” to the taxi driver taking them from the airport to their interview. The rationale, von Ahn explained, was that “if they’re going to be mean to the driver, they’re probably going to be mean to other people, particularly people under them.” With the Employment Rights Act set to quickly grant unfair dismissal rights to new starters joining after 1 July 2026, it is likely that businesses will explore all options, even the very creative ones, to ensure their recruitment process is effective. 

    Using unorthodox criteria or hidden tests to separate otherwise neck-and-neck candidates is nothing new – the ‘receptionist test’ of secretly watching how an executive candidate treats more junior staff has been around for decades. It’s the same energy that fuels The Undercover Boss, and far too many posts on LinkedIn. But while it is no doubt attractive to believe that there is a secret ‘trick’ to weeding out troublesome candidates (or, on the flipside, to getting hired), might there be danger in relying too heavily on this sort of gimmick?

    From a legal perspective, the risk – as is so often the case – is of inadvertently introducing discrimination into the hiring process. While businesses do largely have the leeway to select the candidates they want, giving everyone a fair shot is imperative and bringing in these more ‘maverick’ elements to an interview process could leave cracks for unlawful biases to seep in. Using von Ahn’s taxi test, an autistic candidate, for example, might prefer not to make small talk during their ride and instead use the time to decompress ahead of their interview. Might that be perceived as ‘ruder’ than a chatty neurotypical candidate? The issue is less about a particular protected characteristic, although one can see how disability, pregnancy and race/nationality (especially in the form of accents) could present obvious stumbling blocks depending on the ‘test’; instead the bigger risk arises from deploying unvetted criteria, which may also bear little relation to the day-to-day reality of the role being hired for (thus undermining any legal defence of pursuing a legitimate business aim). 

    Perception of unlawful treatment

    As any employment lawyer can tell you, often avoiding litigation does not just require eliminating unlawful treatment, but also eradicating any space where a perception of unlawful treatment – even if misplaced – could take hold. That is another danger of the hidden interview test. If you know that you are a very well-qualified candidate for a role, and you are told that part of the reason that someone else was preferred to you was (to borrow another oft-referenced “test”) that you did not offer to wash up your coffee cup after the meeting, would you believe it? Perhaps not, particularly if you have already gone in feeling self-conscious about a visible disability, a strong accent or being female in a male-dominated industry. Sometimes that impression of unfairness is all that it takes to kick a dispute into gear, and it can be very difficult to dispel that sort of impression once it has taken root. 

    Even leaving aside any legal disputes, while a secret interview test makes for a pithy news article or a fun LinkedIn anecdote, one can question how it may be perceived by the workforce at large, both inside and outside a business. Generally, people (regardless of industry or status) will like to feel that opportunity and reward are driven by merit and hard work, something to which a secret trick runs counter. For a candidate on the receiving end, it could be all too easy to feel like all of your qualifications and experience have been cast aside in favour of little more than a coin flip. For any business tempted to use a secret test, therefore, protecting the narrative will be crucial – if you must turn the experience into a LinkedIn anecdote, at least make sure to emphasise that the test was the tiebreaker between two stellar candidates, not the only part of the process that mattered. Business therefore ought to be alert to the potential challenges associated with going the extra mile during the recruitment process, though some may be of the view that getting most of their hiring decisions correct in a brave new Employment Rights Act landscape is worth the risk. 

    Chris Deeley is an employment senior associate at law firm JMW in London

    Jinkx Monsoon’s Judy Garland musical proves drag is serious art

    Jinkx Monsoon’s Judy Garland musical, review and star rating: ★★★★★

    Death Drop the Musical cautiously welcomed people back to the theatre in December 2020 with one major claim to fame: that it would be the first all-drag musical. Six years ago, that felt progressive.

    The musical was good, but it played to drag tropes: it was brash, relied heavily on physical comedy, and was literally called Death Drop, which is a dramatic fall-to-the-floor move that typifies the dramatic high production value often associated with drag performance.

    Since then, drag queens and kings have become fairly commonplace in the West End, although they are often cast in pantomimes or, if in straighter productions, then in the role of a drag queen. It feels groundbreaking, then, that US drag artist Jinkx Monsoon has been cast in a straight acting role as Judy Garland in a leading London production: an homage to the life and legend, written by the British playwright Peter Quilter in 2005.

    Jinkx Monsoon: Judy Garland imagined anew

    The story – following Garland’s final weeks while suffering from drug addiction under her exploitative fifth husband and tour manager Mickey Deans – is compelling. Garland is aggressive, arrogant, and stroppy, Quilter’s shocking portrait showing a different side to the woman who is typically glamourised. It conveys the pressure she was under to perform nightly shows to make up for mounting debt (the show is based on a true story).

    Monsoon, who is immense, brings the show a welcome new LGBTQ+ perspective. Garland, as a programme note reminds us, is the ultimate gay icon – her story of overcoming strife is relatable to many queer people – and so seeing a queer person play her is immensely powerful for a community that has long been underrepresented on major London stages.

    Monsoon, who still identifies as a drag queen despite being a trans female, uses dozens of vocal sounds and textures to convey Garland’s temper and vulnerability, and expresses herself with big brush strokes — more shoulder shrugs and moody swooshes than naturalism.

    Jinkx Monsoon is astonishing as Judy Garland

    It is hard to tell how much of that is a drag tendency to exaggerate, but either way, the role is a historical turning point in legitimising the art form. When she belts the numbers – including, yes, Somewhere Over the Rainbow – and the lights spell out J-U-D-Y behind her, Jinkx Monsoon is a dazzling feat. If her job is to briefly help a thousand queer people feel they have seen Judy Garland live, she achieves that on multiple occasions on press night.

    Known from RuPaul’s Drag Race as a comedy queen, she is of course armed with bite: “You could have shoved cables in me and powered Manhattan,” Judy Garland says of how charged on pills she is. Liz Taylor, she says waspishly, was “so charming I wanted to run her over.” Monsoon has perhaps more licence than anyone has before to play up Garland’s acerbic bite and her temper, and thank goodness for drag for its unique ability – and licence – to show truth.

    Cascading white linen

    On a set cascading with white linen, like a tiered wedding cake, at the centre of which is a grand piano, Jacob Dudman makes you tense as the cold, calculating Mickey; Adam Filipe is perfectly gentle as queer piano player Anthony, the nondescript queer a thousand gay men transplant themselves upon in the role of Garland’s would-be saviour. Rupert Hands’ energetic direction provides frivolities aplenty; there is always something fabulous to look at. But mostly this is a radical tribute to a radical woman.

    End of the Rainbow plays at the Soho Theatre Walthamstow

    Argan, Inc. to Announce First Quarter Fiscal 2027 Results and Host Conference Call on Thursday, June 4, 2026

    Argan, Inc. (NYSE: AGX) (“Argan” or the “Company”) today announced that the Company will release its first quarter fiscal 2027 financial results after the market closes on Thursday, June 4, 2026.

    Management will host a webcast with an accompanying slide presentation and conference call on Thursday, June 4, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. ET. Participants can access the live webcast by visiting this link. To access the call by phone, participants can use the following dial-in information:

    A replay of the teleconference will be available until June 18, 2026, and can be accessed by dialing 877-481-4010 (domestic) or 919-882-2331 (international). The replay access code is 54078. A replay of the webcast can be accessed until June 4, 2027.

    About Argan

    Argan’s primary business is providing a full range of construction and related services to the power industry. Argan’s service offerings focus on the engineering, procurement and construction of natural gas-fired power plants and renewable energy facilities, along with related commissioning, maintenance, project development and technical consulting services, through its Gemma Power Systems and Atlantic Projects Company operations. Argan also owns The Roberts Company, which is a fully integrated industrial construction, fabrication and plant services company, and SMC Infrastructure Solutions, which provides teledata infrastructure services.

    Argan Inc. first quarter fiscal 2027 results announcement and conference call details for June 4, 2026 news update

    Contact

    Company Contact:
    David Watson
    301.315.0027

    Investor Relations:
    John Nesbett/Jennifer Belodeau
    IMS Investor Relations
    203.972.9200
    argan@imsinvestorrelations.com

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    Smarsh Introduces New Anthropic Integration to Capture and Govern Claude Enterprise Data Within Its Platform

    As generative AI adoption accelerates across organizations, it is creating a new and urgent challenge for compliance: how to capture, supervise, and govern AI-driven communications at scale.

    Smarsh, the global leader in digital communications data and intelligence, today announced it is integrating with the Claude Compliance API—enabling customers to capture and manage Claude Enterprise interactions directly within Smarsh Capture. The integration brings AI-generated conversations, prompts, and activity into existing compliance workflows—eliminating blind spots and enabling confident, compliant AI adoption.

    Closing the AI Compliance Gap

    As AI becomes embedded in everyday workflows, prompts, files, and system events can be considered part of official communications records—creating new regulatory and operational risks. Compliance teams must rapidly extend governance and oversight to AI-driven communications without slowing innovation or introducing gaps.

    “Organizations want to move quickly with AI, but they can’t afford to do so without proper governance,” said Goutam Nadella, Chief Strategy Officer at Smarsh. “This integration enables our customers to adopt tools like Claude Enterprise while maintaining the transparency, control, and compliance required in regulated industries.”

    By bringing Claude Enterprise into its platform alongside 100+ communication channels, Smarsh provides a unified view of both human and AI-generated communications—transforming compliance from reactive oversight into proactive intelligence. This builds upon Smarsh’s early leadership in capturing and governing emerging AI communication channels.

    Ensuring Compliance Across Claude Enterprise Workflows

    Smarsh Capture for Claude Enterprise delivers visibility across AI-driven workflows, enabling organizations to:

    Powered by the Claude Compliance API, the integration provides direct access to Claude Enterprise conversation data and activity logs, bringing them into Smarsh‘s unified platform for capture, supervision, and analytics.

    With this launch, Smarsh continues to expand its leadership in AI-powered compliance—enabling organizations to innovate with generative AI while maintaining the highest standards of governance, control, and trust.

    About Smarsh

    Smarsh empowers organizations to move from reactive oversight to proactive foresight by unlocking intelligence within their digital communications. Through a cloud-native, AI-powered platform for capture, archiving, and oversight, Smarsh enables regulated enterprises to identify regulatory, reputational, and operational risks early—before they escalate into financial loss or public exposure.

    Trusted by a global client base—including 18 of the top 20 banks across North America, Europe, and Asia, as well as leading brokerage firms, insurers, RIAs, and government agencies—Smarsh is a critical partner in navigating today’s complex communications landscape. To learn more about the future of communications intelligence, visit www.smarsh.com or follow Smarsh on LinkedIn.

    About Anthropic

    Anthropic is an AI safety company building reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems, including Claude, an AI assistant focused on safety and helpfulness. Claude Enterprise gives every employee access to chat, Claude Code, and Cowork — empowering teams across the organization to work faster, produce better outcomes, and tackle more complex challenges.

    Smarsh platform dashboard showing integration of Claude Enterprise data with compliance and risk detection features

    Contact

    Press Contact:
    Ratika Sadana
    ratika.sadana@smarsh.com

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    “This integration enables our customers to adopt tools like Claude Enterprise while maintaining the transparency, control, and compliance required in regulated industries,” said Goutam Nadella, Chief Strategy Officer at Smarsh

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