Business

A medical technology company which produces tissue-healing surgical products has become the latest London-listed business to draw interest from buyout firms. Sky News has learnt that Inflexion, the private equity group, has been studying a takeover of Advanced Medical Solutions Group (AMS Group), which has a market capitalisation of over £500m. On Tuesday evening, it

Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, will hold talks with union bosses and business leaders on Wednesday as the government pursues its ambition of ending “exploitative” zero-hours contracts. Sky News understands that Ms Rayner, business secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Justin Madders, the employment rights minister, will meet representatives of major business groups including the CBI

Traffic could soon be banned from part of London’s most popular shopping area, under new plans by the capital’s mayor.  A scheme announced by Sadiq Khan could see a 0.7-mile stretch of Oxford Street – between Oxford Circus and Marble Arch – pedestrianised with the aim of boosting the experience of shoppers, residents, workers and

The iconic Belfast company that built the Titanic is to collapse into administration. Harland & Wolff has announced it is insolvent and will appoint administrators. An administration order will likely be made this week, it added. Jobs are likely to be lost, the company said, but it did not detail how many. “Workers, their families

A momentous court battle over the fate of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire gets under way in Nevada today. At stake is the future of a string of newspapers and television channels consumed by millions of people around the world, as well as thousands of jobs – and billions of pounds. The media mogul, who turned

Legal & General, the FTSE-100 insurance and asset management giant, will this week pick a new home for Cala Group, its housebuilding subsidiary. Sky News has learnt that Sixth Street, the US-based investor, has emerged as the frontrunner to buy Cala, which ranks among Britain’s ten biggest housebuilders. Sixth Street has teamed up with Patron

Babcock International, the London-listed defence contractor, is weighing a possible bid for some of the assets of Harland and Wolff, the shipbuilder which is close to collapse. Sky News has learnt that Babcock, which has a market value of £2.4bn, has expressed an interest in Harland and Wolff’s Belfast shipyard which is famous for having

Two of Britain’s biggest newspaper publishers are taking the axe to their US workforces, slashing scores of jobs in the latest evidence of mounting financial pressures across the media sector. Sky News has learnt that News UK, the publisher of The Sun, and DMGT, owner of the Daily Mail, have this week announced sweeping internal

A London-listed automotive components supplier has become the latest British-based company to draw overseas takeover interest after receiving a series of offers from a Canadian rival. Sky News has learnt that TI Fluid Systems has received at least two bid proposals from ABC Technologies Holdings, a Canadian competitor. City sources said on Friday evening that

The lawyer for those affected by Capture software predating the faulty Horizon system says his “belief” is that the “report is going to be positive”. Neil Hudgell, a solicitor at Hudgell Solicitors, is representing over 40 former sub-postmasters who used Capture in the 1990s. Dozens who used it claim they were wrongfully accused of stealing

Tesco says it will accept a Supreme Court ruling in a so-called ‘fire and rehire’ case amid government efforts to bolster workers’ rights. The Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw), along with three of its members at Tesco who also represent the union, took legal action over proposals in 2021 to fire staff

The gap between how much money the state takes in and its spending will triple in the next 50 years, according to independent forecasters. Public debt will rise due to an ageing and ill population as well as climate change, the fiscal watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has said. The ratio between debt

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has signalled her first budget as chancellor could be a painful mix of spending cuts, tax rises and increased borrowing. Speaking to Sky News after official figures showed the economy flatlined in July with GDP growth of 0.0%, she refused to rule out increasing business and wealth taxes, or further cuts to

The chancellor has defended the government’s £500m steel industry subsidy, with thousands of jobs set to be lost at Britain’s biggest steelworks. When asked why the government is spending money on jobs that are going to be scrapped, Rachel Reeves said the steel industry was “incredibly important” to the UK economy. The government, Ms Reeves

A slump in oil prices could lead to further reductions at the fuel pumps but any benefit risks being stripped away next month as the chancellor seeks ways to bolster the public finances. A barrel of Brent crude, the international benchmark, slipped below $70 for the first time since December 2021 on Tuesday afternoon. The

A victim of the Post Office Horizon scandal has told Sky News that plans for a new appeals process are “unacceptable” on several fronts. Chris Head, once the youngest sub-postmaster in the UK but who lost everything when he was wrongly accused of theft, spoke out after the business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told MPs the