As payback time approaches for more than 75 billion pounds ($104 billion) of emergency state-backed loans, Britain's banks must tread a delicate path with businesses propped up during the pandemic, Reuters reported. Faced with trying to limit losses for themselves and taxpayers but also avoid a repeat of the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, when banks were vilified and forced to pay millions of pounds in redress for heavy handed debt repayment tactics, lenders are pledging that this time will be different.
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The U.K. faces three potentially catastrophic risks to its public finances, the government’s budget watchdog said, underlining the challenge confronting Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak to restore fiscal restraint, Bloomberg News reported. Unfunded pressures on government departments total some 30 billion pounds ($42 billion) over the next three years as a result of the pandemic, the Office for Budget Responsibility said on Tuesday in its biennial Fiscal Risks Report. The OBR also flagged U.K.
Apollo Global Management Inc. said Monday that it is considering making a bid for U.K. grocery chain Wm Morrison Supermarkets PLC, setting up a potential three-way bidding war with SoftBank Group Corp.’s Fortress Investment Group LLC and U.S. private-equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, the Wall Street Journal reported. New York-based Apollo said that it hasn’t yet approached the board of the British grocer and there can be no certainty that any offer will be made.
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U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said England was on track to lift almost all Covid-19 restrictions as planned on July 19, even as the highly transmissible Delta variant of coronavirus drives a new surge in infections, the Wall Street Journal reported. The move puts the U.K. in the vanguard of countries betting that vaccines will provide a durable route back to normalcy, despite the circulation of dangerous new variants. Mr.
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Britain is set to secure an exemption for financial services from a new global tax system which was agreed by the Group of Seven economies to squeeze more money out of multinationals like Google, the Financial Times said, Reuters reported. Earlier this month, British finance minister Rishi Sunak was pushing for financial service firms to be exempt to help protect the City of London’s largest banks from paying more tax.
Gap will close all its 81 stores in Britain and Ireland by the end of September as it increases its focus on online shopping, The New York Times reported. The retailer also plans to shed its 32 locations in France and Italy. “The e-commerce business continues to grow and we want to meet our customers where they are shopping,” Gap said in a statement. The company is in negotiations with Hermione People and Brands, the retail branch of FIB Group, to take over Gap stores in France, while a buyer for the Italy locations is still not certain.
Non-Standard Finance said that it plans to close its guarantor loans division, the latest British sub-prime lender forced to scale back because of a sharp increase in complaints and intense regulatory scrutiny, Reuters reported. NSF, whose shares slumped 12% after results showed an annual loss and steep costs, said that it will place its guarantor loans division into a managed run-off, and eventually shut it down.
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Britain is set to secure an exemption for financial services from a new global tax system which was agreed by the Group of Seven economies to squeeze more money out of multinationals like Google, the Financial Times said on Wednesday. Reuters had reported earlier this month that British finance minister Rishi Sunak was pushing for financial service firms to be exempt to help protect the City of London's largest banks from paying more tax.
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The British government introduced a new exemption to its quarantine rules on Tuesday for business travelers “bringing significant economic benefit” to England, but the move is unlikely to quell frustrations that certain travel routes in and out of Britain remain effectively shut, the New York Times reported. The exemption has strict criteria and applies only to executives whose work supports at least 500 British jobs. It is much tighter than one that was in place for about six weeks from early December, when travelers needed to support only 50 jobs in Britain.
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The final easing of lockdown measures in England is still set for 19 July, the new health secretary has said, BBC.com reported. Sajid Javid told MPs that ministers "see no reason to go beyond" that "target date". He said that while cases were rising, the number of deaths "remains mercifully low". In a statement, he said no date for lifting restrictions would come with "zero risk" and that "we have to learn to live with" Covid-19. "We also know that people and businesses need certainty, so we want every step to be irreversible," he said.
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