1 Standard Chartered has become a takeover target after the biggest lender in the United Arab Emirates confirmed it had been considering a multibillion-pound bid for the FTSE 100 bank. Shares in Standard Chartered rose by up to 20 per cent yesterday after it emerged that First Abu Dhabi Bank had looked at an offer for the London-based group but was no longer pursuing the idea.
2 A flurry of unexpectedly positive Christmas trading updates sparked a rally in the shares of some of Britain’s biggest retail groups yesterday. These included Next, B&M European Value Retail and Greggs, which all reported rising sales. Next’s shares rallying 6.9 per cent, their highest level in four months.
3 Amazon is cutting more than 18,000 staff in the biggest round of layoffs by a technology giant yet. It will begin informing affected staff this month. Most of the layoffs will affect its retail and human resources divisions.
4 The UK’s dominant services sector showed tentative signs of recovery at the end of 2022, with businesses reporting an easing in inflationary pressures. Activity in the services sector, which includes finance, retail and health industries, inched up in December to 49.9 from 48.8, according to a monthly survey of purchasing managers.
5 A Canadian business has stirred up a hornet’s nest by purging online meetings, saying companies are for builders, not managers, and vowing to “give people back their maker time”. Shopify, an ecommerce platform, has scrapped all internal meetings of more than two people, banned meetings on Wednesdays and is only allowing gatherings of more than 50 people to be held on Thursdays.
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6 Three working days into the year, bosses at Britain’s biggest companies are likely to have made more money than the average UK worker will earn for the whole of 2023, according to the High Pay Centre.
7 Capricorn Energy issued a fresh defence of its proposed merger with NewMed Energy, saying a call by its third biggest shareholder to scrap the deal was based on “incorrect facts and assumptions”. The board of the oil explorer invited Palliser Capital to review its planned merger with the Israeli company.
8 Andy Yen, the founder and chief executive of Proton, says he is making inroads in his plan to provide an alternative vision to that of tech giants Apple, Meta and Alphabet, Google’s owner, with surveillance-free internet services.
10 The City veteran who chairs the London Metal Exchange is to stand down as it recovers from the turmoil caused by a crisis in its nickel market. Gay Huey Evans, who became the first woman to chair the LME in 2019, will not seek re-election this year, the exchange said yesterday.