1 Sarah Gilbert, the Oxford University professor who led the development of its coronavirus treatment, and Adrian Hill, another of its professors, who were the co-founders of the Oxford-based biotechnology start-up behind Astrazeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, are set for a payout worth tens of millions of pounds as it prepares for a stock market listing, which is set to be in New York.
2 Kwasi Kwarteng, the business and energy secretary, expressed strong support for a controversial £1.2 billion energy cable project after he was lobbied by its Conservative donor co-owner, The Times has learnt. Aquind, Alexander Temerko’s company, is seeking permission to build the power cable under the English Channel to connect the UK and French power grids.
3 Guy Opperman, the pensions minister, has warned the public not to trust anything on Google after accusing the search engine of dragging its feet over vetting its advertisers in order to profit from fraudsters promoting investment scams.
4 Wealth taxes, income tax surcharges and solidarity business levies should be considered to support those hit hardest by the pandemic and to tackle rapidly rising public debt, the International Monetary Fund has said. It urged advanced nations such as Britain to consider temporary tax increases to provide targeted support for vulnerable households.
5 MPs and peers have accused LV= of being “less than candid” with its 1.25 million members about a £530 million plan to sell the mutual insurer to Bain Capital, the private equity firm.
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6 Saga, the London-listed group, has suffered a third straight year of annual losses after the cruises-to-insurance company was hit by the shutdown of the holiday industry a year ago.
7 The services sector returned to growth last month for the first time since October as economic activity picked up before the easing of lockdown, according to IHS Markit’s purchasing managers’ index.
8 The slow progress of the vaccination programme in Europe and continuing travel restrictions will leave Ryanair struggling to make a profit in the coming year, the airline has warned.
9 The world’s first large-scale power station to burn pure hydrogen could be built in Britain this decade by SSE and Equinor to generate enough low-carbon energy to supply more than a million homes, the FTSE 100 energy group and the Norwegian state-backed oil company said.
10 Toshiba, the embattled technology and electronics conglomerate, could be the subject of Japan’s biggest private equity buyout after CVC Capital Partners tabled a $20 billion offer.