Competition watchdog urged to review parcel delivery sector December 5, 2019 The UK competition watchdog has been urged to review the delivery sector after research found consumers have lost £85m due to parcel problems over the last year. According to new research, more than half – 59 per cent – of online shoppers faced issues with parcel deliveries including packages being left in insecure locations, delivery [...]
Google’s £2bn acquisition of Looker faces competition probe December 2, 2019 Google’s proposed acquisition of rival analytics firm Looker faces an investigation by the UK’s competition watchdog. Google agreed to buy Looker for $2.6bn (£2bn) in the summer as part of its efforts to expand the service’s cloud offerings. Read more: Price comparison rivals urge EU regulators to take action against Google However, the Competition and Markets [...]
Better together: How media firms are teaming up to take on tech November 30, 2019 The media industry is in flux and embattled publishers and broadcasters are banding together. But will it be enough to fend off the might of big tech? In Succession, the hit HBO show about a crumbling media dynasty, virtually every conversation is a power struggle. But for ageing patriarch Logan Roy, a thinly-veiled Rupert Murdoch, [...]
Daily Mail owner buys i newspaper for £50m November 29, 2019 The owner of the Daily Mail has snapped up the i newspaper for £49.6m, bringing to an end part of a drawn-out sales process by publishing group JPI Media. The Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), which also owns Metro, announced the acquisition in a short statement released today. Read more: Publishing group Reach pulls [...]
HSBC and Santander must repay over £8m in overdraft fees November 29, 2019 HSBC and Santander must refund customers to the tune of millions of pounds after failing to text customers who fell into unarranged overdrafts. HSBC twice broke a legal requirement to text customers before charging them for falling into an overdraft and is refunding £8m to 115,754 customers. Read more: TSB branch closures: Which will close [...]
Finance chief becomes latest executive to leave Deliveroo November 28, 2019 Deliveroo’s chief financial officer has become the latest executive to leave the fast-growing food delivery company. Raif Jacobs, who joined Deliveroo in 2018, left the company in early October, according to a spokesperson. Read more: Deliveroo losses deepen in expansion drive Deliveroo has been hit by a string of executive departures this year following an [...]
Ebay to sell Stubhub to Viagogo for $4bn November 25, 2019 Ebay has agreed to sell its ticket sales platform Stubhub to Viagogo in a deal worth $4.05bn, following pressure from activist investors to offload parts of its business. The auction site bought Stubhub for $310m in 2007, but in March this year it launched a strategic review of its assets following pressure from activist investors [...]
General Election 2019: Conservative Party to ditch central tenet of Big Four audit reform plans November 25, 2019 The Conservatives will throw out a proposal to impose mandatory joint auditors on large companies if they win the General Election. Officials at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) have in recent weeks indicated that the system is unlikely to be introduced as part of wider reform of the auditing sector, Sky [...]
What is microfinance and why does it matter for investors? November 25, 2019 Exclusion from the financial system is widely regarded as a major obstacle to people’s efforts to grow out of poverty. In 2017, 1.7 billion adults across the globe had no access to a bank account, with the vast majority of them living in emerging and frontier markets. 56 per cent of these were women, and [...]
KPMG to slash partner bonuses by up to 40 per cent November 24, 2019 Partners at KPMG are facing steep cuts to their bonuses as the accounting giant cuts costs in a bid to prepare for tighter regulation of its audit work. Partners’ bonuses – which can reach hundreds of thousands of pounds – are set to fall by as much as 40 per cent this year, according to [...]