Months of “frenzied buyer activity” have driven the average asking price for a home in Britain to a new high, according to the property website Rightmove. The property portal said it expected figures from HMRC due later this week to show that June was the busiest month on record for sales, with buyers rushing to...
The former chair of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has said the huge online marketplace fostered by tech companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google means the opportunity to “rip off ordinary people” is growing and that the regulator is struggling to keep up. In a new report, Andrew Tyrie, who quit as chair of the competition...
Soho House is to float on the New York Stock Exchange at a potential valuation of $3bn (£2.2bn), as the private members’ club seeks to take advantage of a post-pandemic global business recovery. The company – which owns 28 Soho Houses worldwide and a clutch of other businesses including Soho Works, Soho Home, The Ned...
You’ve taken delivery of a shiny new electric car, and the plug-in charger is being installed next week. You’re almost ready to go – just don’t forget to switch to a specialist electricity tariff. If you don’t, your bills could end up at least £300 a year higher than they need to be. Over the...
The total value of homes sold in the UK is expected to reach £461bn this year, a jump of 46% on 2020, indicating the current housing market boom is likely to continue, according to a new prediction. The property website Zoopla said its projections indicated the property market in 2021 was on course to be...
Royal Mail’s annual profits quadrupled in its latest financial year as the pandemic-fuelled online shopping boom provided a surge in demand for parcel deliveries and triggered a turnaround in the company’s fortunes. Pre-tax profit jumped to £726m in the year to 28 March, compared with a profit of £180m a year earlier. “This time last...
Sales and profits have slumped at the catering firm Compass Group as the pandemic kept canteens closed at factories, offices and schools. Operating profit fell to £290m in the six months to the end of March, down 65% from £817m a year earlier, while revenue was down almost a third to £8.6bn. However, the figures were an...
Sainsbury’s has hired the former boss of John Lewis Paula Nickolds to take charge of its near £8bn clothing and homewares division, in a move that underlines it ambitions to make its larger outlets feel like department stores. Sainsbury’s said Nickolds, who will join its operating board, would be responsible for the commercial success of its £7.8bn general merchandise...
Sainsbury’s has dived to a £261m annual loss despite booming sales of groceries during the pandemic, as it spent millions of pounds on protecting staff and customers from the coronavirus. The UK’s second biggest supermarket said it had spent £485m on special bonus payments for staff who worked through the pandemic, extra staff to cover those...
Northern and Midlands towns with sprawling warehouse distribution centres have emerged as the places in Britain with the strongest growth in job opportunities as the economy exits lockdown. Reflecting the online shopping boom during the pandemic, data compiled by the jobs website Indeed and the Centre for Cities thinktank showed that Barnsley, Mansfield and Stoke-on-Trent –...