Sports Direct, the British sportswear retailer controlled by founder Mike Ashley, reported a 22 per cent rise in first-half core earnings, as it stemmed losses in its premium unit which includes fashion store Flannels and House of Fraser, The Irish Times reported. The group also repeated its belief that it would not be on the hook for any “material liabilities” from a €674 million bill it received from Belgium’s tax authority in July.
The eurozone's stagnating economy has suffered its worst performance for six years with uncertainty over Brexit partly to blame, economists said today. A survey by global data providers IHS Markit said manufacturing and job creation had slumped with 'gloomy prospects for the year ahead,’ the Daily Mail reported. Chris Williamson, the London firm's chief economist, said Brexit was a factor in the EU's difficulties.
A decisive victory for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party in the British election sent investors scrambling to buy U.K. stocks and pushed the pound to its highest level against the dollar since May 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported. The FTSE 100 index, which tracks the U.K.’s largest companies, rose 1.9 percent, marking its biggest gain since February. The rally was led by gains in stocks such as house builder Taylor Wimpey PLC and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said that airline industry profits will come in lower than forecast this year as passenger numbers and cargo volumes are held back by slowing economic growth and global trade wars, Bloomberg News reported. With less than a month left in 2019, the trade body lowered its annual profit estimate to $25.9 billion -- $2.1 billion less than it predicted in June, and almost $10 billion down from forecasts published a year ago.
British voters are headed to the polls today in an election that will likely determine whether the U.K. will leave the European Union at the end of next month or hold another Brexit referendum, the Wall Street Journal reported. The election is the most crucial, and divisive, the country has faced in a generation. Opinion polls put Prime Minister Boris Johnson ahead with an average 10-point lead over opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, with more than 40 percent of the vote. That would translate into a healthy majority in Parliament for his Conservative Party.
