Natwest in talks to sell pension provider Cushon September 19, 2025 Natwest is gearing up to sell pension provider Cushon just two years after it first acquired the business. The bank has lined up advisers to help work on a sale of the London fintech and is already in talks with a number of potential suitors, according to a report by Sky News. Natwest acquired an [...]
‘Staggering’ – Public sector borrowing in August jumps to highest in five years September 19, 2025 Public sector borrowing in August has jumped to its highest level in five years, raising fears of huge tax hikes in the autumn to balance the books. Borrowing – the difference between total public sector spending and income – was £18bn in August 2025, £3.5bn more than last year and the highest since 2020, when [...]
Former IoD boss banned as a director over Covid bounce back loan abuse September 18, 2025 A former boss of the Institute of Directors has been banned as a company director after being found to have breached Covid loan rules. Anna Daroy, who served as interim Chief Operating Officer and later as interim Director General of the Institute of Directors from October 2018 to November 2019, has been accused of obtaining [...]
The only way to make HS2 cheaper? Build HS3 September 18, 2025 It’s a basic fact of economics that the more efficiently you make something, the easier it is to bring down the price. Among the best-known examples is the Ford Model T, one of the top-selling cars in the 20th century with more than 15 million produced. The manufacturing process became so efficient, and each car’s [...]
Labour’s AI ambitions will clash with its housebuilding targets September 18, 2025 It was all smiles on Tuesday as Chancellor Rachel Reeves became the latest PPE grad politician to don her PPE robes, in a visit to a construction site in Waltham Cross where she unveiled Google’s new data centre. The opening was a moment of celebration, as Google announced another £5bn investment into the UK, a [...]
Asda-owned Leon cuts hundreds of jobs as work from home trend bites September 17, 2025 Leon has axed hundreds of jobs as it bemoaned a “challenging” year in which it wrestled with high cost inflation and depressed customer spending. The Asda-owned fast-food chain cut its headcount by 17 per cent, or 224, to 1,120 over the course of 2024, its latest accounts show, as it sought to bear down on [...]
GSK plots $30bn investment into US in latest blow to UK’s pharma sector September 17, 2025 GSK has unveiled a new plan to spend $30bn (£22bn) on research and manufacturing facilities in the US. The London-based business said the capital would be deployed over the next five years and would create hundreds of high-skilled American jobs in areas such as AI and advanced digital technologies. The investment of £4.4bn per year [...]
Fund managers dumping UK stocks at fastest rate in two decades September 16, 2025 The scale of investor doubts over the British economy has been laid bare after fresh data found fund managers were pulling out of UK stocks at a pace not seen in more than two decades. Average equity allocations to the UK dropped from a net 2 per cent underweight in August to a net 20 [...]
Luxury gym Third Space sees profit double after membership surge September 16, 2025 Third Space has reported a more than doubling of profits after an expansion in venues helped drive a surge in memberships. The London-based luxury gym club, which operates more than a dozen sites across the capital, posted a 115 per cent rise in pre-tax profit to £11.1m in 2024, accounts published to Companies House show. [...]
Google pledges £5bn investment as it opens first UK data centre September 16, 2025 Google has pledged to invest £5bn into the British economy as it opens its first owned and operated data centre in the UK. The tech giant said the investment, which comprises capital spending and research and development over the next two years, will bolster its AI-powered projects in science and healthcare, creating more than 8,000 [...]
