PageGroup profits slide as UK recruitment slowdown bites August 12, 2025 Recruiter PageGroup has posted a sharp drop in first half profits as subdued hiring across the UK and Europe weighed on performance, but the group stuck to its full year targets and pledged to press ahead with cost cuts. The Surrey-headquartered FTSE 250 firm saw operating profit tumble to £2.1m in the six months to [...]
Entain cashes in as BetMGM partnership pays off August 12, 2025 Gambling giant Entain has posted first-half year results ahead of expectations, driven by a strong recovery in its online division and an accelerating performance from its US joint venture, BetMGM. The FTSE 100 operator behind brands like Ladbrokes and Coral reported its total Group Net Gaming Revenue (NGR), including its 50 per cent share of [...]
Why the Online Safety Act has become a political nightmare August 11, 2025 The UK’s Online Safety Act, which came into force on 25th July, was conceived with the noble aim of protecting children from harmful online content. It mandates that web service providers implement “highly effective” age verification measures to prevent minors from accessing material that promotes suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, or abusive behaviour, as well as [...]
Bank of England interest rate cut offers modest boost for UK SMEs August 11, 2025 The Bank of England’s recent decision to reduce its base interest rate from 4.25 per cent to four per cent marks the first time borrowing costs have fallen to this level since March 2023, offering a modest reprieve for UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) after two years of elevated rates. According to new analysis [...]
Nvidia and AMD to pay US 15 per cent cut on China chip sales August 11, 2025 US chipmakers Nvidia and AMD have agreed to hand over 15 per cent of their Chinese revenues to Washington in exchange for the green light to resume sales of high-powered AI chips to the country, in what industry analysts have called an “unprecedented” arrangement. The deal, first reported by the Financial Times, applies to Nvidia’s [...]
Elon Musk’s Tesla makes bid to power UK homes August 11, 2025 Elon Musk’s Tesla has applied for a licence to supply electricity to UK homes and businesses, in a move that could see the world’s most famous electric car brand take on Britain’s energy giants as soon as next year. The application was filed late last month by Tesla Energy Ventures, the Manchester-based energy subsidiary of [...]
Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital confirms merger talks August 11, 2025 S4 Capital has confirmed it has received a proposal from MSQ Partners for a possible combination, following weekend media reports linking the London-listed digital advertising group to the US private equity-backed agency network. In a statement published on Monday, the company said the talks were “at a very preliminary stage” and stressed there was “no [...]
Forest’s Hounslow e-bike contract win sparks concerns over cash-first tender model July 31, 2025 Hounslow Council awarded one of its two e-bike contracts to the operator which offered them the highest fees despite scoring demonstrably lower than rivals on other metrics, City AM can reveal. The move, which has attracted fury from rival operators, lays bare the competing interests of cash-strapped local authorities as they weigh which criteria to prioritise [...]
Big tech hits back as CMA flags ‘harmful” cloud dominance by Microsoft and AWS July 31, 2025 Big Tech companies have pushed back against a damning report from the UK’s competition watchdog, which warned that Microsoft and Amazon’s dominance in the £10.5bn cloud computing market is stifling competition and harming UK businesses. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on Thursday published the final findings of its 21-month cloud investigation, concluding that Microsoft [...]
Meta and Microsoft face AI earnings test July 30, 2025 Meta, the owner of Facebook, and Microsoft will post second-quarter earnings after US markets close today (Wednesday 30 July) with analysts focused squarely on how both tech titans are monetising their multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence (AI) bets. Shares in both firms have surged around 20 per cent so far this year, fuelled by investor enthusiasm around [...]
