Business

The British competition watchdog has blocked Microsoft’s bid to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) stopped the $68.7bn (£55bn) deal due to concerns that it would stifle competition in the cloud gaming market. In its final report on Wednesday, the CMA said that the move was “the only effective

Capital One, the American credit card giant, is poised to swoop on a British luxury concierge service in a deal said to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Sky News has learned that Capital One Financial Corp has struck a deal to acquire Velocity Black, which was founded in 2014 and offers its well-heeled

The chief executive of Ted Baker is close to leaving the company six months after it was taken over by a giant American brands and entertainment conglomerate. Sky News has learnt that Rachel Osborne, who took the helm at the British retailer in the midst of a governance and accounting crisis in 2020, is expected

Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar talks to Ian King about grocery prices and developing trends in our shopping habits. Plus, chief executive and co-founder of GAIL’s Bakery, Tom Molnar, discusses how the rising price of flour has affected his business. Ian’s also joined by the boss of train ticketing app

Renee Elliott, the founder of Planet Organic, is returning to spearhead a rescue deal for the supermarket chain she launched in 1995. Sky News has learnt that Ms Elliott has agreed to lead a takeover of Planet Organic in a deal expected to be finalised on Tuesday. City sources said she had assembled backing from

One of Britain’s most experienced retail executives is joining the board of JD Sports Fashion, part of a management shake-up aimed at improving governance under its new chairman. Sky News has learnt that Darren Shapland, a former finance chief at J Sainsbury, will be named on Tuesday as a non-executive director of the UK’s biggest

A conveyancing software maker is in talks to join the growing exodus of companies from the London stock market. Sky News has learnt that AIM-listed Smoove has received several takeover approaches from unnamed suitors. City sources said on Monday that the company was engaged in discussions with at least one prospective buyer. Smoove is a

The average price of a home coming to market this month rose by just 0.2% to £366,247, according to data from Rightmove. This was lower than the average increase of 1.2% for this time of year. It showed that many new sellers are “taking note of the economic headwinds and the transitioning of the housing

Elon Musk has threatened to sue Microsoft for allegedly using Twitter data without permission. The billionaire’s warning, via a tweet, came after the tech giant revealed it would drop his social media site from its corporate advertising platform. Microsoft‘s service uses AI to help ad buyers manage their social media accounts in one place. Musk

Microsoft has been invited to showcase its products in 10 Downing Street on the same day that its $75bn takeover of games-maker Activision faces being blocked by British competition watchdogs. Sky News has learnt that the technology giant is among the companies due to attend an event organised by UK Interactive Entertainment (UKIE), the industry

The first UK-made Jaguar electric car is to be a £100,000 four-door grand tourer, the vehicle’s manufacturer has announced. The UK’s largest carmaker said its first British car to run fully on batteries will be made in the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) Solihull plant in the West Midlands and will be available in selected markets

After the rate of inflation eased slightly but still remains above 10%, Ian is joined by KMPG’s chief economist Yael Selfin to discuss the official figures. He also talks to Alex Kendall – the chief executive of the UK-based autonomous vehicle group, Wayve – about Asda beginning what it claims is the UK’s biggest trial

Twitter will finally remove “legacy” blue ticks from verified accounts on Thursday. Elon Musk announced earlier this month that 20 April was the final date for culling the checkmarks – almost three weeks after the original plan to do so on April Fool’s Day. The only blue ticks left will be those with a Twitter

The government has made it its primary aim to halve inflation by the end of the year but things aren’t quite going to plan. Britain has shot up the leader board and now has western Europe’s highest rate of consumer price inflation. Economists were expecting the headline rate to fall from 10.4% to 9.8% in

Elon Musk has said he plans to create a “TruthGPT” to counter what he claims is liberal bias shown by a popular chatbot. The billionaire Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX owner told Fox News his alternative to OpenAI’s ChatGPT would be a “maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe”. Musk also

Google’s chief executive had admitted the potential dangers of AI development “keep me up at night”. Sundar Pichai said the technology “can be very harmful if deployed wrongly” and backed growing calls for regulation amid concern about its impact on jobs, privacy, and how information is shared online. “We don’t have all the answers there

China’s economy grew at a faster-than-expected pace in the first quarter of the year, according to its official figures, following the end of strict COVID curbs at the end of 2022. The country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported an annual expansion of 4.5% between January and March. Economists polled by the Reuters news agency

The pace of price rises in the US has eased faster than expected. The consumer prices index (CPI) measure of inflation fell to 5% in the 12 months to March, the lowest level in nearly two years and down from 6% in the year to February. The rate of inflation in the US is now

Police are now investigating alleged sexual misconduct at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). The City of London Police said its inquiries were “at a very early stage”. Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Waight said: “The City of London police takes all acts of sexual misconduct and violence against women and girls extremely seriously. “We approached

You can actually get more of a sense of the mood at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from looking not at their latest forecasts, but at the kind of vocabulary they’re using around them. Words like “ominous”, “perilous” and “significant vulnerabilities” rather sum it up. The IMF is getting very nervous about the state of