1 Sajid Javid has ordered the Insolvency Service to carry out an urgent investigation into the collapse of BHS. The business secretary’s intervention comes a week after Sir Philip Green, former owner of the department stores chain, was called to appear before a joint session of two parliamentary committees.
2 The Office for Nuclear Regulation said that it was seeking assurances from EDF, the company planning to build two nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset, after Areva, which will be making components for the plants, was found to have been falsifying its safety figures.
3 A new runway should be built at Heathrow to end years of “political dithering” over airport expansion, according to MPs. They said that ministers had squandered the opportunity to settle the issue in an impartial way by accepting the conclusions of an independent panel last year.
4 Two bids to buy the Port Talbot plant in south Wales and other British steel facilities from Tata, of India, were tabled last night by Liberty House, an Anglo-Indian group, and Excalibur, a management buyout team backed by Sir Terry Matthews, the Welsh technology billionaire.
5 Factories suffered their steepest decline in activity since 2013 in April, prompting warnings of a deep unease in the industry as it heads back into recession. The services sector was dealt a blow by a 1.7 per cent fall in retail prices.
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6 The UK was the only European Union country not to receive funds from the European Investment Bank last year. The bank spent almost €20 billion supporting small and medium-sized companies, with Germany, Spain, Italy and France received a combined €14.4 billion.
7 Gold was close to a 15-month high as the dollar fell. It was trading at up to $1,302 an ounce, having hit its highest since January 2015 on Monday at $1,303.60.
8 Hopes that inflation might pick up in the eurozone have suffered a blow. The European Commission said that inflation was set to remain “very low for longer than previously forecast” because of low oil prices and a slowdown in global growth.
9 HSBC reported that adjusted pre-tax profits had fallen by $1.16 billion, or 18 per cent, year-on-year for the first quarter to $5.4 billion, better than many analysts had expected, allowing the bank to say that it would not be cutting its dividend.
10 South Korean families will sue Reckitt Benckiser after the deaths of scores of people caused by a toxic disinfectant it sold for use in home humidifiers. Activists representing families say they will file a case in Seoul against Rakesh Kapoor, chief executive, and seven other members of his board.