Business

The FTSE-100 consumer goods giant Unilever is closing in on a £230m deal to snap up Wild, a premium producer of refillable personal care products backed by the founders of Innocent Drinks. Sky News has learnt that Unilever has agreed the terms of a transaction to acquire Wild from its founders and early-stage investors. A

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has called in the bosses of Britain’s biggest high street lenders for a fresh round of talks on the government’s economic growth agenda. Sky News has learnt that executives from companies including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest and Nationwide have been asked to attend a meeting with Ms Reeves on

The private equity backer of one of Britain’s oldest industrial manufacturing groups is in talks to sell an advanced defence technology business that will bring its parent’s dismantling close to completion. Sky News has learnt that Advent International, the buyout firm which bought Cobham for £4bn in 2020 and then swooped on London-listed Ultra Electronics

Reports of “ghost broking”, scammers selling fake car insurance, have risen by 30% over the last five years, exclusive data obtained by Sky News reveals. Ghost brokers sell false policies to drivers, manipulate information given to genuine insurance companies, or take out insurance and cancel it straight away. This leaves people without valid car insurance,

Legal & General (L&G), the FTSE-100 insurance and asset management group, is preparing to kick off a search for a successor to chairman Sir John Kingman. Sky News has learnt that the company, which this week announced a major corporate deal in the US, is close to appointing headhunters to oversee the appointment process. City

Apple has reportedly been ordered by the UK government to allow it access to encrypted data stored by the company’s users worldwide in its cloud service. At the moment, only the Apple account holder can access such data – not even the US technology giant can see it. Apple, which makes iPhones, iPads and iMacs,

Purplebricks, the online estate agent owned by Sir Charles Dunstone, one of Britain’s most prolific entrepreneurs, has parachuted in an interim chief executive 18 months after it delisted from the London stock market. Sky News has learnt that shareholders in Strike, Purplebricks’ parent company, were notified this week that Stuart Bartlett, a former automotive industry

The head of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has effectively been forced out of the role after losing the confidence of its board amid growing government pressure on economic watchdogs. Sky News understands that Abby Thomas, whose departure was announced earlier on Thursday, was at the centre of several disputes with fellow directors over issues

Let’s start with the simple bit: interest rates have been cut – down by another quarter percentage point to 4.5%. But what happens next? Not long ago, the answer was quite simple: the Bank of England would carry on cutting borrowing costs, one quarter point cut every three months, until they reached, say, 3.5%. That,

US imports racked up a record monthly high in December as companies rushed to secure products in advance of trade tariffs imposed by Donald Trump. Official figures showed a 3.5% leap in imports compared to the previous month as the clock ticked down to Mr Trump‘s return to the White House on 20 January. The

Ewan Venters, the former Fortnum & Mason chief, is joining the board of Paul Smith Ltd, the design company best-known for its striped fashion garments. Sky News understands that Mr Venters, who recently stepped down as the boss of global contemporary art gallery Hauser & Wirth, has agreed to become a non-executive of Paul Smith

Britain could do a slimmed down trade deal with the United States within months, the last politician to oversee negotiations with Donald Trump’s administration over a UK-US agreement has told Sky News. Last night Sky News revealed that leading members of the Trump administration believe a trade deal with the UK could be sealed in

The owner of CurrentBody, a brand of beauty technology used by celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Serena Williams, is plotting a £350m flotation that could deliver a boost to the flagging London stock market. Sky News has learnt that The Beauty Tech Group, which is run by co-founder and chief executive Laurence Newman, is

What if Britain has, almost entirely by accident, navigated itself into about the best possible position it could be in, as Donald Trump embarks on a trade war with nearly all his economic partners? I realise this might, at first, sound a little odd. After all, when the world is facing economically-destructive measures (blanket tariffs

Bill Gates says he believes he would have been diagnosed with a form of autism if he had grown up in this era. The Microsoft co-founder, who is one of the world’s richest people, makes the observation in his memoir: Source Code: My Beginnings – which will be released on Tuesday. In an excerpt shared

The boss of GB Energy has told Sky News it could take 20 years to deliver a Labour government pledge of 1,000 jobs for Aberdeen. Sir Keir Starmer promised voters his flagship green initiative, which will be headquartered in the northeast of Scotland, would cut consumer energy bills by as much as £300. It is