BUSINESS

Shareholders have proved to be more successful at securing bumper payouts than workers have at winning higher pay, according to two studies that show dividends outstripping wages by a considerable margin in recent years. Oxfam said analysis of global data showed that dividend payments to shareholders over the last three years grew an average of … Read more

(NewsNation) — As student protests escalated at Columbia University, with a building overtaken and flags replaced, businessman Kevin O’Leary cautioned that such actions could negatively impact employment chances down the road. O’Leary, an investor on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” said in a Tuesday interview on “The Hill on NewsNation” that companies do extensive background checks on … Read more

Prices in UK shops rose at their slowest rate since late 2021 in April as deep discounts by clothing and footwear retailers put the brakes on inflation, the latest snapshot of high street spending trends has shown. The monthly bulletin from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) – the lobby group for the industry – found … Read more

The contagion merchants are out in force at Thames Water. If the country’s biggest water company goes under, runs the argument from assorted bondholders and City bankers, we will all pay a price. Other water companies will pay more for their capital, shoving the cost on to our bills eventually, and the burned bondholders will … Read more

A secret, unpublished memo from Margaret Thatcher’s tax-cutting chancellor Nigel Lawson warned against merging national insurance and income tax because it would “create many losers” including pensioners. The advice in the memo will be a blow to Rishi Sunak, who has said it is his ambition to scrap the tax on workers. He has called … Read more

How much money should go to those given infected blood in the 1970s and 80s? And how much to the wronged subpost office operators? Such questions surge periodically into the daylight and then subside. Last month it was the subpost office operators’ turn, stirring a burst of public rage. Today, an amendment to a bill … Read more

The Premier Inn owner Whitbread is to cut 1,500 jobs in the UK and shut more than 100 struggling restaurants despite announcing a significant rise in returns to shareholders. Whitbread, which runs 850 hotels in the UK and has the sector’s biggest brand, Premier Inn, said it was starting a consultation on the cuts on … Read more

The United Arab Emirates-backed consortium that proposed a £600m takeover of the Telegraph group is walking away after it said new legislation meant the acquisition was “no longer feasible”, triggering a fresh auction of the newspaper group. The decision by RedBird IMI – a partnership backed by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE’s vice-president, … Read more

Importers of food from the EU into Britain have said newly introduced post-Brexit checks could increase their costs by up to 60%, pushing up prices for customers and driving some shops out of business. After five previous delays, the UK government on Tuesday introduced the physical checks on animal and plant products entering from the … Read more