Two-tiered recovery? High Streets struggle as one-in-seven shops sit vacant July 30, 2021 A wave of administrations, closures and downsizing has decimated the UK high street, with new figures out this morning showing one in seven shops are sitting empty – and the problem is getting worse. In the second quarter of 2021, the overall vacancy rate increased to 14.5 per cent across the UK, from 14.1 per [...]
Salesforce CEO: We need to hire based on skills, not university degrees July 30, 2021 Employment figures released by the Office for National Statistics this month were a bittersweet pill. On the one hand, there is optimism: vacancies have exceeded pre-pandemic levels, the number of employees on payroll is up and unemployment is down. But the other side of the coin is difficult to tackle: there simply aren’t enough people [...]
Screenshot: Will the digital advertising boom ever end? July 30, 2021 This week **Media Moment of the Week: You are what you tweet **Will the digital advertising boom ever end? **Esports: Britain’s next big thing? Media Moment of the Week: You are what you tweet You know the scenario: someone says something you don’t like on Twitter and you have an overwhelming urge to rise to [...]
Amazon falls short of estimates amid retail competition July 29, 2021 Amazon reported second quarter sales that missed Wall Street expectations on Thursday, in a rare shortfall as rival retailers ramped up online sales and brick-and-mortar made a recovery when lockdown restrictions eased. The e-commerce giant posted net quarterly sales of $113.08bn to June 30, up from $88.91bn a year earlier. Its results fell short of [...]
Robinhood shares slide below offer price on Wall Street debut July 29, 2021 Shares in popular trading platform Robinhood slumped below their offer price immediately after their Nasdaq debut on Thursday, in a lacklustre start to one of this year’s most anticipated IPOs. In what signalled slack investor demand for the online brokerage – which exploded in popularity during the pandemic amid retail investor appetite – shares fell [...]
New travel rules are a stark reminder of previous government failures July 29, 2021 Even Boris Johnson’s most vocal supporters would admit the government’s Covid travel policy, insofar as it has had one, has been wracked with inconsistencies, confusion and inaction. Dominic Cummings’ suggestion that Johnson outright refused to implement a coherent travel policy in the second half of last year appears to be painfully true when confronting the [...]
US stocks climb to record high on positive economic growth July 29, 2021 Wall Street climbed to record highs on Thursday as investors piled into stocks after new figures revealed the US economy is recovering quickly from the Covid crisis. The S&P 500 hit record levels in opening trading, but scaled back to rise 0.53 per cent to 4,424 during the morning session. Likewise, the Dow Jones and [...]
Carlyle raises $10.4bn in second quarter as pursues largest ever private equity fund July 29, 2021 Global investment firm The Carlyle Group took in $10.4bn from investors in the second quarter and nearly doubled its earnings, as it looks to raise what would represent the industry’s biggest ever buyout fund. Carlyle posted robust second quarter distributable earnings growth on Thursday, rising to $395.4m from $198.4m in the same period last year. [...]
New frontier: UK renews outdated space policies as giants seek commercial travel July 29, 2021 The UK is set to start regulating commercial space travel from today, as an increasing number of companies look to capitalise on the race to the stars. Before appointing its first-ever space travel regulator, the UK Civil Aviation Authority (UK CAA), the global legal framework surrounding commercial space travel appeared a relic of the Cold [...]
Inmarsat takes on Elon Musk and Oneweb with satellite network launch July 29, 2021 British satellite giant Inmarsat is launching a new network of satellites to offer global broadband and 5G services, joining an escalating space race alongside rivals Elon Musk and Oneweb. The project, dubbed Orchestra, will bring together the company’s existing geosynchronous satellites (Geo) with low-earth orbit satellites (Leo) and land-based 5G services to create a single [...]
