1 Energy bills could rise to almost £1,900 a year from April as supplier collapses add to the pain of record wholesale prices. Citizens Advice accuses Ofgem of a “catalogue of errors” that will mean households pay an extra £94 a year from April to foot the £2.6 billion cost of supplier failures over the past four months.
2 Sterling dipped to a new 2021 low against the US dollar at one point as expectations that the Bank of England will raise interest rates next week waned because of Plan B restrictions to slow the spread of the Omicron variant.
3 The government and HS2 are on the verge of announcing a £2.8 billion contract for the most prestigious train manufacturing project in the history of Britain’s railways is to be awarded to Derby’s historic Litchurch Lane works and Hitachi’s factory at Newton Aycliffe in Co Durham.
4 Europe’s largest travel and tourism business said that a sharp rise in Covid infection rates from the Omicron variant had started to hit bookings. Tui Group said that it was likely to cut its winter capacity to the bottom end of the 80 per cent to 60 per cent range, but remained positive over next summer’s programme.
5 Monzo, the digital bank, has raised $500 million, in a sign its fortunes are improving. The Abu Dhabi Growth Fund led a round in which Coatue and Alpha Wave Ventures joined Monzo’s existing backers.
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6 Sir George Iacobescu has said the government needs to help cities to recover from the pandemic after Michael Gove disbanded an advisory group of business and local government leaders. The chairman of Canary Wharf Group was among ten people appointed to an urban centre recovery task force.
7 Pete Redfern, boss of Taylor Wimpey, has announced plans to stand down, after reports an activist investor was targeting the housebuilder. Redfern, 51, as chief executive of George Wimpey brokered the merger with Taylor Woodrow in a motorway café on the M40.
8 Berkeley Group, the housebuilder, has lifted its profit guidance for the next four years after a rebound in demand for its homes in London. The developer said its pre-tax profits would be 5 per cent up on City analysts’ estimates.
9 Clinigen, a drugs company best known for its Proleukin cancer treatment, said it had agreed to a £1.2 billion cash takeover by Triton Investment Management, a European private equity firm specialising in mid-market industrial technology and healthcare companies.
10 Centrica, the owner of British Gas, said that its subsidiary Spirit Energy had agreed an £800 million deal to sell most of its Norwegian fields to Sval Energi and interests in one other to Norwegian state-backed Equinor.