Business

Bitcoin has jumped more than 10% to a record high after Tesla said it had invested $1.5bn (£1.09bn) in the cryptocurrency and would soon start accepting it as a form of payment for its cars and other products. The disclosure of the investment, in a regulatory filing, sent Bitcoin up by more than 12% to

Boohoo is to pay £25m for Dorothy Perkins, Wallis and Burton in a deal set to catapult the fashion brands to an online-only future at the expense of thousands of high street jobs. The online fashion specialist, which has already snapped up the Debenhams name amid the COVID-19 bloodbath for physical retailers, said it was

Amazon and other major internet retailers could be hit with a new online sales tax to help the UK pay its debts after extensive borrowing during the pandemic. Treasury sources confirmed Chancellor Rishi Sunak is considering targeting companies that have done well out of the pandemic to help pay back UK government debts built up

The volume of exports going through British ports to the EU fell by 68% last month compared with January last year, according to research. The Road Haulage Association’s chief executive Richard Burnett told The Observer that the organisation had also found 65-75% of vehicles arriving from the EU were returning to the bloc empty. This

Britain’s biggest banks will finalise plans for annual bonus payouts in the coming days, ahead of a results season that will lay bare billions of pounds of anticipated loan losses arising from the coronavirus pandemic. Sky News has learnt that the state-backed lender NatWest Group has informed the Treasury that it wants to hand out

A watchdog has stepped in to stop Clydesdale Bank forcing small firms to open a business account with it to access coronavirus loan support – in breach of the rules. The move comes after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found the lender had broken legal undertakings, which ban the practice known as bundling. This

A private equity consortium has approached Aggreko, the FTSE-250 temporary power supplier, about a potential £2bn takeover deal. Sky News understands that TDR Capital, which is in the process of buying the British supermarket chain Asda, and I Squared Capital, an infrastructure fund, have tabled an indicative proposal to Aggreko’s board in recent days. The

Around 15 million families will see their energy bills rise by up to £96 after the regulator hiked the price cap. The return to pre-coronavirus levels is mainly as a result of increase in wholesale costs, according to Ofgem. For six months from 1 April the price cap will increase by £96 to £1,138 for

The Bank of England has predicted that the economy will “recover rapidly” this year – as it left interest rates on hold at 0.1%. Latest forecasts from the Bank suggest that after taking a steep downturn during the current period of lockdowns, the roll-out of vaccines and scaling back of restrictions will boost growth for

Shell has reported a $19.9bn (£14.4bn) loss for 2020 after an “extraordinary year” in which oil and gas prices have slumped amid the coronavirus pandemic. The energy giant tumbled into the red, compared with a profit of $15.3bn (£11.1bn) in 2019, as it took billions of dollars worth of accounting charges against the value of

Boris Johnson has vowed to “do everything we need to do” – including an attempt to override post-Brexit arrangements with the EU – in order to “ensure there is no barrier down the Irish Sea”. Having held talks with Northern Ireland’s First Minister Arlene Foster on Wednesday morning, the prime minister later raised the prospect

Amazon has announced its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is to step down from running the business as it reported record revenues for its core Christmas quarter, topping $100bn for the first time with help from the coronavirus pandemic. The e-commerce, cloud data storage and entertainment giant said Bezos would become executive chair during the

Shares targeted by armchair investors to inflict losses on hedge funds this year have fallen sharply in a sign the activism may have peaked. The market value of GameStop – a struggling US gaming retailer – plunged by up to 50% on Tuesday to roughly $105 a share amid a rollercoaster ride for the stock

Interest-free “buy-now-pay-later” (BNPL) deals face tighter regulation under plans announced by the government. A review published by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that the currently unregulated use of BNPL products nearly quadrupled to £2.7bn during 2020 and five million people had used them since the start of the pandemic. It concluded that the market

Silver has become the latest target of a small-time trading frenzy that last week targeted US retailer Gamestop – as the boss of the London Stock Exchange group admitted that the trend was a worry. The price of the precious metal rose 11% to its highest level since Feburary 2013 at more than $30 an

ASOS has agreed to buy Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge – but their 70 stores, employing 2,500 people, are not included in the deal. The online retailer is paying a total of £330m for the brands, plus stock currently held and on order, following the collapse late last year of Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia retail