BMW invests £500m in Oxford Mini plant with car maker expected to receive £75m UK taxpayer grant March 8, 2023 Hundreds of jobs could be created from a £500m investment in Oxford by BMW, as it looks build electric models of its Mini in Britain. The German car-maker is reportedly preparing to unveil a major injection of cash – including £75m of government-approved funding – as first reported by Sky News’ Mark Kleinman. The investment [...]
Virgin accuses Heathrow of ‘abusing its power’ as British Airways weighs in on CAA decision to fix price cap March 8, 2023 A war of words has broken out between Heathrow Airport and major carriers Virgin Atlantic and British Airways, following the Civil Aviation Authority’s decision to fix the passenger price cap. The regulator confirmed the average maximum price per passenger will fall by about 20 per cent from £31.57 per passenger in 2023 to £25.43 per [...]
Hotel Chocolat ‘cautious’ as falling revenue and profit dampen outlook for Mother’s Day and Easter sales March 8, 2023 Hotel Chocolat had a bittersweet second half of 2022 with dents in its revenue and profits, owing to “hefty investments”, as it is not so optimistic ahead of Mother’s Day and Easter. The premium chocolate maker reported a fall in its revenue to £129m down from £142m last year, while its gross profit was down [...]
Slack to offer users a ChatGPT AI tool which will write messages for them ‘in seconds’ March 7, 2023 Slack customers will get “new superpowers” after the app unveiled a ChatGPT AI tool aimed at boosting millions’ of its users productivity. The messenger service’s owner Salesforce has teamed up with ChatGPT’s developer OpenAI, a Slack customer, to offer the artificial intelligence chatbot to the system for the first time. ChatGPT is an AI chatbot [...]
London house prices fall but still almost double national average according to Halifax property index March 7, 2023 London house prices have fallen by almost one per cent from January, but property in the capital still costs £240,000 more than the national average. Halifax’s latest house price index for February showed the rate of annual national growth slowed across the UK, with the average property now sitting at £285,476. In the capital however, [...]
Twitter: Trolling, disinformation and exploitation rife since Musk takeover, BBC Panorama claims March 6, 2023 An explosive BBC Panorama documentary this evening will claim Twitter is failing to protect users from trolling, state-co-ordinated disinformation and child sexual exploitation. The deep-dive programme at 8pm on Monday features a raft of insiders at the social media company, building on academic researched shared with the broadcaster. This comes after billionaire Tesla owner Elon [...]
Tony Danker: CBI boss steps down amid sexual misconduct allegation March 6, 2023 The head of the Confederation of British Industry, Tony Danker, has stepped down from the role amid misconduct allegations. The announcement was made in the Guardian, after the publication reported that the CBI had hired lawyers to investigate alleged impropriety. The CBI insisted it takes all allegations “extremely seriously” but until an investigation in completed [...]
Capita offloads resourcing wing as it continues bid to reduce £482m debt bill March 6, 2023 Outsourcing giants Capita has agreed the sale of its resourcing wing for £21m, as it continues its bid to slash its debts. The company has offloaded Capita Resourcing, HR Solutions and ThirtyThree to Inspirit Capital, and will take in £17m for the agreement. In Capita’s results on 2 March, it reported a 2.4 per cent [...]
‘Fading recession fears’ boost optimism as services sector bounced back to growth in February March 3, 2023 The UK’s service sector bounced back to growth in February as business optimism improved and activity expanded at the fastest pace since June. The S&P Global/CIPS UK services PMI survey showed a reading of 53.5 in February, up from 48.7 in January and slightly ahead of market expectations. Any score above 50 is considered growth [...]
Nottingham Building Society says soaring lending ‘aided by higher interest income’ boosted profits March 3, 2023 The historic Nottingham Building Society reported strong pre-tax profits driven by a surge in mortgage lending last year. Founded in 1849, the building society this morning announced group pre-tax profits of £18.9m, with underlying pre-tax profit of £15.2m. Despite the downturn in the housing market in wake of the disastrous mini budget, it said in [...]
