1 Ministers are discussing plans to force housebuilders to use land for which they have secured planning permission by putting time limits on planning approval for large developments. More than 1.1 million homes that have been approved have not been built in the past ten years, according to analysis by the Local Government Association.
2 Private equity firms and overseas buyers flocking to Britain to acquire companies on the cheap have sent bids for British businesses to their highest level since 2007. The volume by combined value of takeover attempts involving UK targets has reached almost $217 billion this year, up from $58 billion a year ago, according to Refinitiv, the financial information provider.
3 The $40 billion takeover of Arm, one of Britain’s most valuable technology businesses, by Nvidia, the American chipmaker, has been thrown into doubt amid speculation that the UK government is thinking of blocking the deal on national security grounds.
4 Sweaty Betty, the British maker of £85 sports leggings, has been sold to Wolverine Worldwide, the American owner of Hush Puppies and Saucony shoes, for $410 million.
5 Some of China’s largest internationally listed companies, such as Tencent, have come under renewed selling pressure amid a fresh wave of concern over a regulatory crackdown in Beijing.
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6 BMW and Stellantis, the world’s fourth largest carmaker, which owns Peugeot and Fiat Chrysler, and have become the latest car companies to raise their profit forecasts despite the global semiconductor shortage that is ravaging production.
7 BP, the oil major, is to push its shareholder returns above pre-pandemic levels in this quarter after it declared confidence in its performance and the oil price outlook.
8 Pent-up demand for home improvements has given Travis Perkins the confidence to lift its profit guidance for the year, despite warning about rising costs and availability issues. Britain’s biggest builder’s merchant recorded a 44.1 per cent increase in like-for-like sales.
9 Efforts by Standard Chartered to keep its 6,000 staff in Hong Kong “out of trouble” by helping them to deal with the national security law imposed on the territory by Beijing appear to be working as the FTSE 100 bank said that its employees had not had any incidents linked to the legislation.
10 Rebounding sales and business rates relief have lifted pre-tax profits at Greggs, the Newcastle-based bakery chain, to £55.5 million for the six months to July 3, reversing the £65.2 million loss recorded for the period last year.