Business

Administrators have selected a rival battery start-up based in Australia as preferred bidder for collapsed Britishvolt. EY confirmed on Monday morning that its team had chosen Recharge Industries – owned by US investment firm Scale Facilitation Partners – to acquire the “majority of the business and assets” of Britishvolt following its demise last month. The

The German automotive giant BMW is in talks with the government about a £75m funding package that would secure production of electric Minis at its Oxfordshire plant. Sky News has learnt that BMW is negotiating with officials at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) over a grant from Whitehall’s Automotive Transformation Fund.

Netflix has said that updated measures to crack down on password sharing were posted by mistake. Following widespread disappointment on social media, with many threatening to cancel their memberships, the streaming giant claimed some new account rules being trialled in other countries had accidentally been added to its help pages elsewhere. While subscribers have been

Google looks set to unveil how it plans to rival the wildly successful ChatGPT AI, possibly within days. The technology giant has scheduled a 40-minute event for Wednesday 8 February, when it will reveal how it is “reimagining how people search for, explore and interact with information”. “Join us to learn how we’re opening up

Elon Musk did not deceive his investors when he tweeted in 2018 that he had the funding to take Tesla private, a jury has found. Investors had sought to sue the SpaceX owner for billions of dollars because his tweet caused Tesla’s shares to soar, only to crash 10 days later when it became clear

London’s FTSE 100 Index has reached an all-time high at 7905 earlier this afternoon. The Financial Times Stock Exchange index of the 100 most valuable companies on the London stock exchange beat the previous record of 7,903.5 set in May 2018. It comes as central banks – including the Bank of England and the US

One thing the energy industry agrees on in theory – if not, it turns out, in practice – is that forcing prepayment meters on vulnerable customers is unacceptable.  The widespread revulsion at British Gas debt collectors forcing entry to the homes of families is deserved and universal. Less clear-cut is what to do about the

The energy regulator Ofgem has asked suppliers to suspend the forced installation of prepayment meters and review their processes for dealing with customers who have fallen into arrears. Sky News understands the regulator made the request on Thursday after it was revealed that debt collectors working for British Gas had forced their way into the

The Bank of England has raised UK interest rates by a further half percentage point to 4%, but gave its clearest signal yet that borrowing costs may now be nearing their peak. This was the Bank’s tenth successive interest rate increase, but in the accompanying documentation, it hinted that there is a chance it might

About 2.3 million households missed an essential payment in January – an increase of 400,000 on the month before, but similar to previous years. Essential payments – which include mortgages, rent, loans and credit cards – often peak in January, according to Which?’s consumer insight tracker. The monthly poll of approximately 2,000 people discovered that

Britain’s second-biggest steel producer has been drawing up secret plans to axe hundreds of jobs even as it continues talks with ministers about £300m of taxpayer funding that would partly depend on decade-long employment guarantees. Sky News has learnt that British Steel has been discussing launching a consultation on around 800 redundancies, principally focused on

Corporate insolvencies have reached their highest level since the aftermath of the great financial crisis, official figures show. There were 22,109 insolvencies in 2022, the highest figure since 2009 and an increase of 57% from 2021, when 14,059 businesses went bust. Businesses are reeling from the end of the pandemic support packages, which provided a

Shop prices have yet to reach their peak – despite record highs seen in January, it has been warned. Prices are now 8% higher than they were last January, up from 7.3% in December and above the three-month average of 7.5%, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC)-NielsenIQ Shop Price Index. Overall food inflation rose

Support for trade unions is rising even though strike action is bringing public services to a standstill , Sky News polling shows. Industrial relations are at their most fractious since the 1980s, with the country having lost more than a million working days to strikes last year. Despite this, sympathy for striking public sector workers

Arrival, the UK start-up focusing on development of commercial electric vehicles, has revealed that it is to cut its workforce by half as it focuses on incentives to build its operations in the United States. The company said the layoffs, part of a plan to significantly reduce costs, would leave it with 800 employees globally.

The first “blank cheque” company to list in London after an overhaul aimed at helping the City compete with rival financial centres is in talks to merge with a privately owned drugs group developing treatments for chronic diseases. Sky News has learnt that Hambro Perks Acquisition Company (HPAC) is in advanced negotiations about a deal,

After Flybe went into administration on Saturday, many travellers will be out of pocket having bought tickets, while others are stranded in their outbound destination. Flybe has told its passengers to “not travel to the airport” unless they have arranged alternative flights with another airline. What are passengers’ rights if your flight is cancelled? Flybe

Flybe has ceased trading and all its scheduled flights have been cancelled, with hundreds of jobs lost. The airline has gone into administration less than a year after returning to the skies following a previous collapse. Sky News understands that 277 of Flybe’s 321 staff have been made redundant. The remaining 44 have been retained.

Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, is closing in on a multibillion pound deal with Britain’s biggest housebuilders to help resolve the national cladding crisis exposed by the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster. Sky News has learnt that major companies including Barratt Developments and Persimmon are preparing for the imminent signing of a legally binding contract

Jeremy Hunt became chancellor because he was the most sensible candidate left standing in the wake of Liz Truss’s catastrophic mini-budget. Four months on, he’s earned praise for balancing the books but still had a blank space to fill in when it comes to growth – a crucial plank of economic policy in danger of