Ralph & Russo is teetering on the brink of insolvency for a second time as the haute couture fashion house struggles to stay relevant under new ownership, The Times reported. The luxury brand originally founded by Tamara Ralph and Michael Russo in 2010 has filed for protection from creditors three years after it was rescued out of bankruptcy by American investors.
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Official figures Friday showed that the British economy, the world’s sixth-largest, enjoyed a growth spurt in February, the month before U.S. President Donald Trump started to roll out tariffs on imported goods, the Associated Press reported. The Office for National Statistics found that the British economy grew by 0.5% in February, ahead of market expectations for a more modest increase of 0.2%. It also revised up January’s figure to no change from the previous estimate of a 0.1% decline. Were these more normal times, hopes for the year ahead would be high.
The deputy leader of Lancashire County Council has defended the authority’s debt levels after Nigel Farage claimed it was on the brink of “bankruptcy,” the Lancashire Post reported. Alan Vincent said the borrowed money was being used to fund key projects and assets that benefit residents – and insisted County Hall’s finances were sound. The Reform UK leader made the allegation during a campaign visit to West Lancashire on Wednesday, ahead of next month’s local elections. He said that it was costing the county council £135,000 a day in interest to service its borrowing needs.
A GP practice manager who failed to pay more than £75,000 into the pension funds of staff at her surgery now faces seven years of bankruptcy restrictions, The (U.K.) Insolvency Service reported. Sonia Simkins, 54, of Foxglove Way, Dudley, ran Hawes Lane Surgery in Rowley Regis as a sole trader.
The U.K. economy is growing more strongly than expected but U.S. President Trump’s barrage of tariff hikes and pauses threaten to stymie further acceleration ahead, the Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product increased by 0.5% in February, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed Friday. That was a better performance than the marginal growth economists had expected, and means the U.K. economy is very likely to record growth over the first quarter as a whole, barring an unexpectedly large reversal in March.
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Risks of a hit to the global economy and further sharp falls in financial markets have grown due to U.S. President Donald Trump's import tariffs and the UK is exposed to the fallout, the Bank of England said, Reuters reported. "The probability of adverse events, and the potential severity of their impact has risen," the BoE's Financial Policy Committee said on Wednesday. A major shift in global trade could damage the financial system by weakening economic growth, the FPC said in a summary of a two-day meeting which ended on Tuesday.
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Rising U.S. tariffs on imports from other countries may lead to lower inflation in the U.K., a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee said Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. In a speech at a conference in South Africa, Swati Dhingra said global prices fell in response to higher tariffs during Donald Trump’s first term as president as sellers in China and other countries lowered their prices to find buyers elsewhere. Dhingra said that upward pressure on U.K.
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A total of 2,718 companies shut down between January and March this year, the biggest number in the first quarter of any year since 2021, when 5,133 notices of liquidation were filed during the UK’s third lockdown, the Telegraph reported. There were 2,483 business closures in the first quarter of 2022, 2,348 in the first quarter of 2023 and 1,877 in the first quarter of 2024. Rachel Reeves raised taxes by a record £40 billion at the Budget in autumn, including a £25 billion rise in employers’ National Insurance.
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Thames Water has appointed a former Pennon Group PLC and Anglian Water executive as its new finance boss after the previous chief quit abruptly last week, MorningStar.co.uk reported. Steve Buck will join next week at a "pivotal" moment for the heavily indebted water group as it searches for a buyer to help stabilise its finances. Buck was formerly the CFO at Pennon, which owns South West Water, and at Anglian Water. He has also held a number of senior finance roles at British Gas owner Centrica PLC, and previously worked for Thames Water between 2002 and 2007.
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The U.K. government has been told by a select committee that they must take a tough approach to clawing back taxpayers' money loaned to rugby union teams during the covid-19 pandemic, Worcester News reported. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) loaned £474million in total to 120 organisations in the sport and culture sectors to help them survive the impact of the pandemic, with £123.8m of that loaned to Premiership Rugby clubs.
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