Business

Navantia, the Spanish shipbuilder, is racing to finalise a takeover of the stricken shipyard-owner that built the Titanic amid urgent talks to reshape a major government contract. Sky News has learnt that Navantia is attempting to negotiate more favourable terms for a deal to build three Fleet Solid Support ships (FSS) for the Royal Navy

The joint owner of Chelsea Football Club has joined forces with one of his fellow board members to bid for the most valuable team in English cricket’s Hundred competition. Sky News has learnt that Todd Boehly is backing a bid spearheaded by Jonathan Goldstein, a British property entrepreneur, in an offer for a large stake

Restaurant chain TGI Fridays has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US. The bankruptcy protection filing was made by TGI Fridays Inc, a Dallas-based American arm of the casual dining brand, which operates 39 restaurants in the US. It comes after the company faced financial challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and after a deal

The business secretary will next week hold talks with dozens of private sector bosses as the government contends with a significant corporate backlash to Labour’s first fiscal event in nearly 15 years. Sky News has learnt that executives have been invited to join a conference call on Monday with Jonathan Reynolds, in what will represent

UK markets stabilised on Friday, offering some reassurance to Rachel Reeves as investors, policy makers and business continued to absorb the scale and implications of her first budget. Thursday saw an unusually large increase in the cost of UK government borrowing in response to the massive package of tax rises and increased borrowing. Yields on

The cost of government borrowing has jumped, while UK stocks and the pound are up, as markets digest the news of billions in borrowing and tax rises announced in the budget. While there was no panic, there had been concern about the scale of borrowing and changes to Chancellor Rachel Reeves‘s self-imposed borrowing rules. At

First things first: don’t panic. What you need to know is this. The budget has not gone down well in financial markets. Indeed, it’s gone down about as badly as any budget in recent years, save for Liz Truss’s mini-budget. The pound is weaker. Government bond yields (essentially, the interest rate the exchequer pays on

Google has reportedly racked up a fine of more than two undecillion rubles – two followed by 36 zeros – after it removed state-run and pro-government accounts from YouTube. Put another way, an undecillion is a trillion times a trillion times a trillion. The fine is far greater than the world’s total GDP, estimated at

In the lead up to this week’s budget, the government has been criticised for strongly hinting at a number of policies coming down the pipeline. But that signalling of what today’s budget would mean for companies appears to have contained much of the market fallout, with steep tax rises coming as little surprise. That’s not

The Labour manifesto never did add up. On the one hand, Keir Starmer vowed there would be “no return to austerity” under his government, while also insisting he had “no plans” to raise taxes beyond an £8bn raid on private equity, oil and gas companies, private school fees and non-doms to pay for more teachers

TikTok’s founder Zhang Yiming has become China’s richest man with a fortune of almost $50bn (£38bn). Dubbed the “short video king”, the 41-year-old topped the Hurun China Rich List for the first time with $49.3bn (£37.9bn). Mr Yiming stepped down as chief executive of ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, in 2021. He is the 18th individual

Lowri Williams is struggling to cover her basic expenses. Earning a low income with very little support, she says she feels like she’s “living hand-to-mouth” and barely getting by. She’s one of a large group of people in low-income households who are caught in a precarious position, earning too little to comfortably support themselves, but

A second group of Thames Water lenders will this week submit a fully funded £3bn financing package that it will argue is cheaper and more certain than a rival offer endorsed by the company last week. Sky News has learnt that the water utility’s Class B bondholders – which are reported to include Aviva, BlackRock

Former chancellor Jeremy Hunt has accused the independent fiscal watchdog of “political impartiality” ahead of its review that could be critical of the Conservative government. The previous government has been accused by Rachel Reeves, the current chancellor, of leaving a £22bn financial “black hole” between income and promised spending in the public finances. Ms Reeves

A former chair of one of Britain’s biggest auditors is to step down as chairman of Interpath, the independent advisory firm, because of a potential conflict of interest involving its private equity backer’s choice of auditor. Sky News has learnt that Interpath, which has been engaged by billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe on his cost-cutting campaign

The amount employers pay in national insurance is set to rise in next week’s budget to raise money for public services, Sky News understands. Reports have suggested it could be increased by up to two percentage points and will – in part – be used to help fund the NHS. A government source told Sky