True, the investment firm that owns the Cotswold Company and Zwift, the online fitness platform for cyclists and runners, has raised a new fund to take stakes in “bombed-out” listed retail and consumer companies. The fund, which has raised £25 million from founder investors, plans to target small and medium-sized retail, consumer and consumer-related technology…
Jason Tarry, a fishing obsessive, has apparently spent the summer casting lines into streams. From this month, when he succeeds Dame Sharon White as chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, he will be able to indulge in his favourite pastime at the Leckford Estate in Hampshire, which was bought by the retail mutual in 1929…
Millions of homeowners could save money on their mortgage payments after the Bank of England cut its base rate of interest for the first time in more than four years. The base rate fell from a 16-year-high of 5.25 per cent to 5 per cent on Thursday in an unexpected boost for borrowers. What difference…
As the hairstylist to Diana, Princess of Wales, and more recently for Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, Sam McKnight is used to being at the top of his game. He is a legend in his industry, able to work on creative partnerships with demanding fashion designers such as Karl Lagerfeld and John Galliano without hesitation….
The 1990s were a time of outrage. Riots were sparked by Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax. John Major’s subsequent Conservative government was mired in sleaze. Then with the dawn of New Labour, the laddish antics of the Gallagher brothers riding the wave of Britpop success swept across Britain, drawing the ire of parents up and down…
When Ed Miliband first put forward the idea of a temporary freeze on energy bills as leader of the opposition in 2013, he was ridiculed by David Cameron, then prime minister, as wanting to live in a “Marxist universe”. The energy price cap eventually introduced by Theresa May’s Conservative government six years later was a…
President Biden’s opposition to US Steel’s takeover by Japan’s Nippon Steel signals that America is no longer an open market, a group representing British companies with US operations has warned. The $15 billion deal is expected to be blocked imminently on national security grounds, even though Japan is one of America’s closest allies. The takeover…
For millions of people, the energy price cap rise in October will be a moment when the abstract concept of energy efficiency suddenly becomes all too real: inefficient homes are becoming very expensive. Our latest analysis, published today in partnership with economists at the CEBR, underlines the scale of the growing energy efficiency divide in…
It is a conundrum. Growth news since Labour won the general election nine weeks ago has been pretty good, and continues, but readings from the public finances continue to be troubling. That you can have a reasonable run of growth, but a very poor fiscal inheritance, is unusual. True, there have been periods before when…