Business

The average asking price of a house in Britain has hit a new record, pushing over the £360,000 mark, according to website Rightmove. The average asking price has surged by £19,082 over the past three months, reaching £360,101. Some 53% of properties are selling at or over their final advertised asking price, the highest percentage

Oil prices have hit near two-week lows, with analysts pointing to events in China and the US as possible reasons for a fall in demand. The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, was down by $3.15 or 3% early on Monday, falling to $103.50 a barrel. Earlier in the session, it hit $103.41 –

Rishi Sunak will this week attempt to put his recent political troubles behind him when he courts City figures at a Conservative donors’ dinner designed to bolster party finances. Sky News has learnt that the chancellor will speak at the event in central London on Tuesday evening, with guests being charged £10,000 for a 10-person

The three final bidders for Chelsea FC are being pressed to provide more details of the club’s proposed administration and governance arrangements as they inch closer to becoming the new owners of last season’s Champions League winners. Sky News has learnt that the remaining consortia vying to buy the Blues for well over £2bn were

Supermarkets across the UK have placed limits on how much cooking oil that customers can buy due to supply-chain problems caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Most of the UK’s sunflower oil comes from Ukraine, which has resulted in restrictions applying to that product as well as olive and rapeseed oils at some supermarkets. Tesco

The owner of Britain’s biggest chain of upmarket holiday villages is lining up bankers to oversee a review of its options, which could pave the way for an auction valuing it at £4bn. Sky News understands that Brookfield Property Partners, the Canadian property giant, is close to appointing Barclays to advise on the future of

A spokesman for the fallen global car boss Carlos Ghosn has said he is “surprised” by reports the French authorities have issued an international warrant for his arrest. Mr Ghosn, who fled Japan in 2019 ahead of a trial on financial misconduct charges linked to his tenure at the helm of Nissan and Renault, was

Retail sales plunged by 1.4% last month – far more than expected – as consumers tightened their belts in the face of the squeeze in living costs, according to official figures. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the decline was largely driven by a drop in demand for online purchases and pointed to dented

Elon Musk has secured the financing for his takeover bid of Twitter, including £16.1bn of his own fortune, according to a new regulatory filing on Thursday. The remainder of the funding, amounting to more than £19.5bn, will be provided through two debt commitment letters offering a series of loans from Morgan Stanley Senior Funding. Twitter

Nestle, the maker of KitKat chocolate bars and Nespresso coffee, has warned that rising costs will force it to raise prices again this year. The food group, which also includes the Nesquik breakfast ceral brand in its stable of goods, said its price action to date had helped organic sales rise more than expected in

Streaming titan Netflix lost subscribers in the first three months of this year after years of explosive growth, sending the company’s shares plummeting. After losing 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter, Netflix indicated in its financial results that it could shed a further two million members in the second quarter of this year. The company

Netflix has hinted it could crack down on password sharing after losing 300,000 subscribers in the first three months of the year. This is the first time Netflix has reported a loss in subscribers in more than a decade, with the company warning another two million subscribers could leave in the three months to July.

Bosses of the UK’s largest energy firms have called on the government to intervene with “unprecedented” measures to prevent a fuel poverty crisis next winter. The chief executives told MPs investigating energy prices that while pre-payment customers were already reeling from the effects of rising bills, they expected the numbers in financial distress to only

The price of more than a million train tickets will be cut by up to half in April and May as the government seeks to ease cost of living pressures – but commuters will not benefit as only off-peak and advanced tickets are included in the sale. Dubbed the Great British Rail Sale, Transport Secretary

A billionaire brewing heir is backing one of the trio of consortia which remain in the hunt to buy Chelsea FC as the auction of the Premier League club enters its final stages. Sky News has learnt that Alejandro Santo Domingo, a Colombian citizen who sits on the board of the Budweiser-owner ABInBev, is part

The founder of one of Britain’s biggest privately held consumer finance groups is in talks about the sale of a minority stake that would yield a windfall worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Sky News has learnt that Together Financial Services, which specialises in areas such as mortgage lending and auction finance, has asked private

George Osborne, the former chancellor, has been parachuted in to help the Los Angeles Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly clinch a takeover of Chelsea Football Club that would rank as the most lucrative sports franchise sale in history. Sky News can exclusively reveal that Robey Warshaw, the City advisory firm that Mr Osborne joined last year,

Twitter’s board of directors unanimously adopted a “poison pill” defence in response to Elon Musk’s proposal to buy the company and take it private, the social media giant has said. The strategy is formally called a “limited duration shareholder rights plan” and is used to defend against hostile takeovers. Twitter said the move aims to

The Ricketts family-led consortium has withdrawn its bid to buy Chelsea Football Club. The Chicago Cubs owners and their partners opted not to submit a final bid for the Blues, due to “unusual dynamics around the sales process”. Tom and Laura Ricketts had partnered with US billionaires Ken Griffin and Dan Gilbert to place a

When Elon Musk declared on 4 April that he had become the biggest single shareholder in Twitter there was much head scratching as to why the Tesla chief executive had taken his 9.2% stake. Some commentators assumed he was just having a bit of fun. A few days earlier, he had run a Twitter poll,