Beijing turns up heat on data holding firms, seeking to divide Ant Group’s Alipay September 13, 2021 Beijing regulators, who are acting increasingly hawkish around sensitive data firms, are reportedly seeking to break up Ant Group’s loans business Alipay to form a separate app instead. Under the proposal, Jack Ma’s Ant Group will hand over its user data to a new credit scoring joint venture with state-backed firms, the Financial Times first [...]
Traffic Chaos: M25 blocked by climate protestors during rush hour September 13, 2021 Frustrated drivers were seen clashing with climate protestors after a demonstration brought traffic on the M25 to a standstill during rush hour. Tens of thousands of motorists trying to use the UK’s busiest motorway were delayed by activists from Insulate Britain this morning who sat in the road holding banners. The group is calling on [...]
Valneva share price plummets after UK government terminates contract September 13, 2021 The UK government has terminated a supply agreement with the French-Austrian vaccine company, Valneva, causing share price to drop by as much as 45 per cent. The government ordered 100 million doses of Valneva’s Covid-19 vaccine, increasing its request by 40 million in February. The contract supported 100 jobs at the company’s vaccine production site [...]
UK firms bank on London’s status as top financial centre September 13, 2021 More than two thirds of the UK’s financial firms believe that London will retain its status as one of the world’s leading financial centres after Brexit. When Britain completed its exit from the EU in December last year, it divorced from its biggest single export customer, casting doubts over its status as a leading global [...]
Getlink to launch new cross-Channel rail freight service September 13, 2021 Getlink has today announced that it will launch a new rail service which will allow freight to cross the Channel totally unaccompanied. The firm, which manages and operates the infrastructure of the Channel Tunnel between England and France, will open the new service on 18 September. The new service, which will operate six days a [...]
Rolls-Royce and Babcock sell stakes in RAF refuelling business for £315m September 13, 2021 Industrial heavyweights Babcock and Rolls-Royce today sold off their respective stakes in Air Tanker, the company which owns the RAF’s fleet of refuelling planes. The two firms, which owned a combined 40 per cent of Air Tanker, are both on something of a disposal spree after taking a hefty hit from the pandemic. Rolls-Royce, which [...]
Heathrow now 10th busiest European airport as passenger slump goes on September 13, 2021 Heathrow Airport has this morning urged ministers to streamline the UK’s travel restrictions as it revealed it had fallen to 10th on the list of Europe’s busiest airports. It said that passenger numbers at the airport last month were down 71 per cent on pre-pandemic levels. It blamed the ongoing slump on “ever-changing restrictions, expensive [...]
ITM Power runs a loss from operations of £26.7m in FY21 September 13, 2021 ITM Power, a company which manufactures hydrogen energy solutions, has announced meagre results for FY 2021, running a loss from operations of £26.7m. While sales revenue jumped 30 per cent year on year to £4.3m, adjusted EBITDA losses increased by 18 per cent to stand at £21.4m. Total revenue and project grant funding stood at [...]
Over 300,000 travellers may have breached Covid-19 quarantine rules September 13, 2021 More than 300,000 travellers arriving in England or Northern Ireland may have breached mandatory quarantine rules just before the height of the Delta variant spike. Some 300,000 cases were handed to investigators between March and May this year, according to the BBC, while the government was unable to say how many cases were found to [...]
Scrap travel restrictions for fully vaccinated people, aviation industry begs September 13, 2021 Representatives for the aviation industry have written to Grant Shapps to demand that travel restrictions be scrapped for those who are double vaccinated. In a letter to the Transport Secretary, Airlines UK and the Airport Operators Association (AOA) said that the UK was lagging behind the rest of Europe in terms of the sector’s recovery. [...]
