B&M: FTSE 250 shares plunge as profit and job cuts revealed June 4, 2025 Shares in B&M have plunged by more than ten per cent after the retailer revealed a lower profit, rising debt and job cuts. The Liverpool-headquartered company, which is a member of the FTSE 250 index, reported a pre-tax profit of £431m for the 12 months to 29 March, 2025, down from the £498m it achieved [...]
Reeves won’t rule out extending income tax threshold freeze June 4, 2025 Rachel Reeves has vowed not to repeat the scale of tax rises in last year’s Autumn Budget as businesses brace for further hikes to meet the chancellor’s wafer-thin fiscal headroom. As much as £40bn in tax rises was unveiled in the budget, including huge hikes to employer National Insurance Contributions, which added millions of pounds [...]
UK trade deals to lift growth, KPMG says June 4, 2025 UK growth could be higher than expected due to trade deals agreed with the US and the European Union, a City consultancy has said. Most forecasters downgraded the UK’s economic outlook for the year in the wake of President Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’, with the IMF and other major forecasters warning the UK was set to [...]
Ninety One: Asset manager hopeful of ending years of outflows June 4, 2025 Ninety One was hopeful of ending years of fund outflows after the FTSE 250 firm recorded a positive second-half performance. The asset manager, which is based in London and Johannesburg, has recorded only a single year of net inflows since its 2020 flotation after clients pulled a combined £25bn from the firm. But on Wednesday, [...]
Why the UK investment system needs a complete overhaul June 4, 2025 Nick Saunders, CEO of Webull UK, an online investment platform, says the UK must completely overhaul its investment system if it wants to drive growth. Like a rickety Edwardian chair with a broken leg, the retail investment infrastructure in the UK is so badly damaged that not even the most optimistic Bargain Hunt contestant would [...]
B&M: Revenue ticks up as new stores outperform June 4, 2025 Discount retailer B&M has reported a bump in its full-year earnings after progress in France and a better-than-anticipated performance at its new stores. The London-listed Luxembourg-headquartered company reported revenue of £5.57bn in the 52 weeks ended March 29, up 3.7 per cent year on year. It said the higher revenue was “primarily driven” by the contribution [...]
Business investment could be revived in ‘promising’ sign, BCC says June 4, 2025 Business investment could soar as high as 4.8 per cent this year, a leading commercial group has predicted, bulldozing through its previous expectations of a paltry 0.6 per cent rise. Little cash has been put into making firms more effective in recent years, which has in turn stalled growth and hampered the UK’s ability to [...]
Bank of England warns pace of rate cuts ‘shrouded in uncertainty’ June 3, 2025 The pace of UK interest rate cuts is “shrouded in a lot more uncertainty” due to the “unpredictable” global economic situation, the governor of the Bank of England has said. Andrew Bailey told MPs during a Treasury Committee session that while rates are on a “glide path” downwards the Bank had “genuine concerns” about escalating [...]
Deutsche Bank: £10bn of tax hikes coming in Autumn Budget June 3, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to raise taxes by at least £10bn in this year’s Autumn Budget as rising inflation and increased spending eat into the Treasury’s fiscal headroom. “With a tough Spending Review due in June, we expect fiscal news to worsen over the coming months,” said Deutsche Bank analysts in a research note. [...]
OECD: Rachel Reeves’ ‘insufficient’ fiscal headroom poses risk to UK economy June 3, 2025 The OECD has warned Rachel Reeves’ wafer thin fiscal headroom poses a significant risk to the UK economy as it cut its growth outlook for Britain in 2025 and 2026. The economic organisation urged the Treasury to “step up” efforts to bolster its “very thin” fiscal headroom, expressing concern that it could cause “significant downside [...]