Business

The Bank of England has held interest rates at 3.75% but signalled that further cuts are now “likely” later in the year as inflation falls back to the Bank’s 2% target faster than expected. In a narrow decision, five members of the nine-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted to maintain rates at the level set…

KKR, the American investment giant, has become the latest global corporation to sever ties with Global Counsel, the lobbying firm set up by Lord Mandelson, the disgraced former politician. Sky News has learnt that KKR has decided to cease working with Global Counsel in the wake of fresh revelations about the close ties between Lord…

The chief executive and publisher of the Washington Post has stepped down, just days after a third of the paper’s staff were made redundant. In an email sent to staff, Will Lewis said that “during my tenure, ​difficult decisions have been taken in order to ensure ‍the sustainable future of The Post” – seemingly referencing…

The housebuilder Barratt Redrow, Heathrow Airport and the outsourcing giant Mitie are among a group of businesses backing the launch of a coalition aimed at tackling barriers to investment in local areas across Britain. Sky News understands that the Social Value Commission, which will also include E.ON UK, the utility, and VodafoneThree, will launch on…

NatWest Group is closing in on a £2.5bn takeover of Evelyn Partners, the wealth management group, in what would be its biggest corporate takeover since its taxpayer bailout in 2008. Sky News has learnt that NatWest, which returned to full private ownership last year, is this weekend in advanced talks to acquire Evelyn from its…

Northern towns could be in line for a funding boost after complaints from MPs that a new system for allocating cash to councils favours London. Ministers have been holding talks with northwest MPs about making tweaks to the fair funding formula – which some MPs claim left them “absolutely shafted”. Politics Live: Trump says Starmer’s…

Morrisons, the UK’s fifth-largest supermarket chain, is exploring a £1bn property deal amid its battle to recapture the ground it has lost to rivals including Sainsbury’s and Aldi. Sky News has learnt that Morrisons, which is based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, has engaged the real estate advisory firm CBRE to evaluate options for raising finance…

Anthropic, one of the biggest and most influential tech companies in the world, is launching a new model: Claude Opus 4.6. Until now, this would mostly be big news for techies, where Anthropic is admired as the maker of Claude Code, the code-writing AI tool which many engineers say is taking over their work entirely….

Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, is not given to emotional outbursts or shooting from the hip. Being measured in your public comments is part of the job description for running a central bank, and Mr Bailey has stuck to it since succeeding Mark Carney in 2020. (To understand the constraints of the…

John Healey, the defence secretary, has held urgent talks with the boss of Leonardo, the Italian defence contractor, amid fears for thousands of jobs at a military helicopter factory in Somerset. Sky News has learnt that Mr Healey met Roberto Cingolani, Leonardo’s chief executive, on Friday for talks about an ongoing tender process which could…