Britain's economy shrank for the second straight month as GDP dropped 0.1 percent, which nobody saw coming since forecasters thought things would bounce back. The slump happened because people and companies basically froze up before the Chancellor dropped the Autumn Budget, and services got hit the hardest, while construction also tanked. Car manufacturing actually jumped after Jaguar Land Rover got back online following that cyberattack shutdown, but it was not enough to save the overall numbers.
Businesses across industries admitted they were sitting on their hands waiting to see what tax hikes were coming, and the uncertainty killed spending and investment decisions. The Bank of England has a rate call coming up, and investors are...
The guys who started UK payments company GoCardless are cashing out after agreeing to sell to Dutch competitor Mollie for around $920 million. CEO Hiroki Takeuchi and his co-founder, Tom Blomfield, who also helped launch Monzo, are looking at a serious payday from the deal, which will mostly be paid in stock rather than cash.
GoCardless has been processing over $130 billion in annual transactions for more than 100,000 businesses since launching back in 2011. The valuation is actually lower than what investors thought the company was worth a couple of years ago, when interest rates were still rock bottom, but it still counts as one of the bigger fintech exits Britain has seen lately.
Takeuchi is staying on after the acquisition wraps...
The Office for Budget Responsibility got hammered with almost 240,000 cyber attacks over the past year, which is wild considering they just leaked the Chancellor's Budget by accident a few weeks back. Richard Hughes quit as chair after the flagship fiscal document showed up online before Rachel Reeves could even deliver her speech, and an investigation found it was just human error with a WordPress plugin rather than hackers breaking through.
A former National Cyber Security Centre boss led the probe and discovered the team misunderstood some Download Monitor settings, plus they forgot to block direct file access on their server. Journalists basically just tweaked a URL and grabbed the whole thing. Security people are saying the sheer...
A cross-party Westminster group focused on investment scams and financial reform just picked new leadership after their annual meeting at Portcullis House. John McDonnell from Hayes and Harlington is taking over as chair, backed by vice chairs Sarah Bool, Lord Davies of Brixton, and Ben Lake. McDonnell said fraud victims need actual justice instead of excuses, and he pushed back against the idea that consumer protections hurt economic growth.
The team is worried about what they call a trust deficit in UK finance, saying weak enforcement keeps regular people from participating in markets and wrecks the country's reputation internationally. They wrapped up a bunch of investigations and parliamentary summits this year, and they have more...
Britain's live entertainment sector is begging the Prime Minister to rethink the new Business Rates system, saying the policy is about to wreck grassroots music venues, jack up arena ticket costs, and kill thousands of jobs. Industry leaders sent a letter to No. 10 warning that the Valuations Office Agency revaluations and higher tax multipliers for big event spaces are going to hammer venues at every level, even with the transitional relief the Budget offered.
Small clubs where artists like Ed Sheeran got their start are looking at closures because the finances are already sketchy, and major arenas are staring down rate increases over 100 percent that will probably get pushed onto fans. Mid-sized regional venues are apparently on the...
A Goldman Sachs International exec is saying UK small businesses are getting spooked by government policy chaos, and the main issue is nobody knows what taxation and employment rules are going to look like down the road. Kunal Shah dropped this ahead of some event celebrating Goldman's small business training program, and he mentioned that founders are nervous about Labour's regulatory moves and the whole tax situation after the recent Budget.
Small business owners apparently feel good about their own operations, but the uncertainty around Labour's manifesto promises is making them hesitant to invest or bring on new workers. The government walked back its day-one unfair dismissal plan, settling on a six-month qualifying period instead...
A California defense startup worth $30 billion is teaming up with a British engineering company to build parts for autonomous fighter drones on the Isle of Wight, and the whole thing depends on winning a Ministry of Defence contract. Anduril Industries, founded by the guy who made Oculus VR, wants to produce aircraft that can fly alongside Apache helicopters and handle reconnaissance and strikes in dangerous airspace. The project is called NYX, and officials are throwing around $100 million just for the design phase over the next couple of years.
The military has been watching what drones are doing in Ukraine, and they want something that makes their helicopters more effective while cutting down on maintenance costs. Anduril has been...
Elon Musk's rocket company is apparently gearing up for a massive public offering that could hit a $1.5 trillion valuation, and people are saying this might happen sometime next year. The listing would pull in over $30 billion and rank as one of the biggest stock debuts ever, sitting just behind Saudi Aramco's record from a few years back. SpaceX has been grinding since 2002, and it's become the go-to launch provider for basically everyone from governments to satellite companies.
The business has two major money makers at this point. First is the launch side with their reusable Falcon rockets, which have completely changed the game by making space access way cheaper. Second is Starlink, the satellite internet thing that's been blowing...
Mike Ashley's Frasers Group just grabbed the Designer Outlet in Swindon, which pulls over three million shoppers annually and sits inside an old railway works building. CEO Michael Murray says owning prime shopping real estate fits their strategy of controlling both the stores and the actual properties where everything happens, and this follows their recent pickup of Scotland's Braehead Shopping Centre.
The outlet previously belonged to LaSalle Investment Management, which only bought the place a couple of years back before flipping it. Frasers keeps stacking shopping centers while running Sports Direct, Game, Jack Wills, and a bunch of other retail chains across the UK. Analysts figure the company wants maximum leverage over rents and...
