2025: It’s been one hell of a year for UK business December 11, 2025 From political drama to market volatility, cyber attacks, takeovers and trade wars – 2025 has not been plain sailing. January: motor finance and angry farmers We began the year reporting on the exodus from the London stock exchange noting that 2024 had been the quietest year on record for new listings and we suggested that [...]
Is Netflix headed for the ‘Adobe effect’? December 11, 2025 Netflix, now the world’s most valuable streaming company, insists it is still in expansion mode. However, its $72bn bid for Warner Bros Discovery last Friday, and the rival, hostile counter-move from Paramount Skydance on Monday, have triggered an uncomfortable question in Hollywood and on Wall Street. Is Netflix wandering into the same trap that humiliated [...]
Greedy Fifa rinsing fans over World Cup tickets – even Americans are baulking December 11, 2025 Ed Warner finds that even Americans accustomed to paying through the nose for live sport are outraged at the prices Fifa is allowing to be set for tickets at the 2026 World Cup. It was a bitterly cold evening in Boston, the temperature well below zero, and yet the Bruins fans still rolled up to [...]
Will the land of the free take a dim view of my social media posts? December 11, 2025 Earlier this year one of our journalists booked a holiday to India, and I had to provide him with a letter confirming that he was travelling in a personal capacity and wouldn’t be doing anything as nefarious as journalism while in the country. Days later another of our reporters decided to follow suit, and I [...]
Brits may have to hand over social media profiles to visit US December 10, 2025 US officials will vet the social media activity of Brits travelling into the US as President Trump increasingly turns his fire on a “decaying” and “weak” Europe. Those planning to visit on short term Esta visas would have to give personal details of family members, including dates and places of birth, and phone numbers used [...]
Netflix $72bn Warner offer: ‘I never saw it coming’ says co-founder Marc Randolph December 10, 2025 Netflix’s former CEO and co-founder, Marc Randolph, said the $72bn bid by his former company last week for Warner Bros.’ film studios and streaming business, “came as a shock”. Speaking at Abu Dhabi Finance Week, Randolph told the audience, “I will confess I never saw that [move] coming. I haven’t worked at Netflix for quite [...]
Trump won’t be able to resist shaping the future of American media December 9, 2025 Less than twenty years ago, Netflix was still sending DVDs through the post. That particular innovation helped to see off Blockbuster, which crashed from a valuation of around $5bn in the early 2000s to bankruptcy in 2011. Today, Netflix has a valuation north of $400bn and is swooping on a giant of the golden age [...]
UK and US agree to zero tariff deal on pharmaceuticals December 1, 2025 The government has agreed to a major deal with Washington that will see the UK become the only country to secure zero import tariffs on pharmaceutical products into the US for at least three years. The deal follows months of negotiations between the government and the Trump administration, after the June trade deal left the [...]
Big Tech pays up as Reeves keeps digital tax November 27, 2025 The Treasury slipped out its long-awaited review of the UK’s Digital Services Tax alongside yesterday’s Budget – and despite months of diplomatic sabre-rattling from Washington, the government is digging in. Big Tech, it seems, will still have to cough up. The report, required by legislation and published with all the enthusiasm of a rainy Tuesday, [...]
2026 World Cup: SoFi boss dismisses Trump threat to move games from LA November 14, 2025 The boss of the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles says he expects the £4bn venue to play a key role in staging next summer’s 2026 World Cup despite US President Trump threatening to move games from the city. Trump has raised the prospect of stripping LA, San Francisco and Seattle of their scheduled fixtures if [...]