News

Apple broke a 14-quarter streak of revenue growth as supply chain problems in China delayed delivery of iPhones during the critical holiday period. Total revenue in the quarter fell 5.5 per cent to $117.2bn, below forecasts of $121.1bn, according to Refinitiv. Analysts had been pricing in a 2 per cent decline after Apple warned of

Adani Enterprises has called off its $2.4bn equity fundraising in the latest blow to Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, who has seen shares in his industrial empire tumble after a short seller made allegations of fraud and stock manipulation. The decision to pull the share sale and refund investors marks an abrupt turn after Adani Enterprises’

EU member states have warned Brussels against giving Ukraine an unrealistic expectation of rapidly joining the bloc, ahead of a summit in Kyiv where Volodymyr Zelenskyy is pressing for progress on accession and reconstruction. Zelenskyy is due to host his EU counterparts Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel this week, where he is expected to lobby

The Biden administration has stopped providing US companies with licences to export to Huawei as it moves towards imposing a total ban on the sale of American technology to the Chinese telecom equipment giant. Several people familiar with the discussions inside the administration said the commerce department had notified some companies that it would no

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has sacked Nadhim Zahawi as chair of the Conservative party after his ethics adviser found he committed “serious breaches” of the ministerial code by failing to be transparent about his tax affairs. Sunak finally jettisoned Zahawi on Sunday after weeks of negative coverage in the latest political scandal to hit

In politics, they say, the cover-up is often worse than the crime. Nadhim Zahawi’s “error” in overlooking millions of pounds he owed in tax is gobsmacking enough, to those of us who are slogging to file our own returns by next week’s deadline. But his denials of what turned out to be true should have

The UK tax authority has admitted that it gave misleading information last summer when it said no government minister was being investigated, even though Nadhim Zahawi was the subject of a probe. HM Revenue & Customs has now apologised for wrongly stating last June that no ministers were under investigation — mistakes it blames on

The new chief executive of Rolls-Royce has given a brutal assessment of Britain’s flagship engineering group, telling employees it must transform the way it operates or it will not survive. In a global address broadcast to staff, parts of which were shared with the Financial Times, Tufan Erginbilgic warned that investors were losing patience with

The US and Germany will send main battle tanks to Kyiv, a significant increase of western military aid that was condemned by Russia and prompted cheers throughout Ukraine. The US will be sending 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine — or the equivalent of one Ukrainian tank battalion, senior Biden administration officials confirmed on Wednesday.

Germany is to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, in a move that marks a significant breakthrough in western efforts to bolster Kyiv’s fight against the Russian army. A person familiar with the matter confirmed that Germany would send the tanks, although he would not provide details on how many and what type were under

Nadhim Zahawi was fighting for his political life on Monday after prime minister Rishi Sunak ordered an ethics inquiry into the tax affairs of the Conservative party chair. Sunak’s support for Zahawi was highly conditional, after he declared that “there are questions that need answering” over Zahawi’s dispute with HM Revenue & Customs. Downing Street

The eurozone will avoid a recession this year according to a widely-watched survey of economists which illustrates the sharp about-turn in global economic sentiment in the past couple of weeks. As recently as last month, analysts surveyed by Consensus Economics were predicting the bloc would plunge into recession this year. But this month’s survey found

Banks are gearing up for the biggest round of job cuts since the global financial crisis, as executives come under pressure to slash costs following a collapse in investment banking revenues. The lay-offs — which are expected to be in the tens of thousands across the sector — reverse the mass hirings banks made over

Germany dashed its allies’ hopes that it would approve the dispatch of battle tanks to Ukraine on Friday when a high-profile defence ministers meeting failed to reach an agreement. Many western countries argue that the German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks would greatly help Kyiv mount a counteroffensive against Russia, but Berlin has yet to agree,

Reed Hastings is stepping down as chief executive of Netflix, the company he co-founded 25 years ago, in a shake-up at the top of one of the most powerful studios in Hollywood. Hastings, who launched Netflix in 1997 as a DVD-by-mail service, wrote in a blog post that he has been increasingly delegating management in

Founders Fund, the venture capital firm co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, closed almost all of its eight-year bet on cryptocurrencies shortly before the market began to crash last year, generating about $1.8bn in returns. The San Francisco-based fund made its first investment in bitcoin in early 2014 and went on to invest large sums in

Business leaders and top government officials have expressed optimism about the global economy as China drops Covid controls, the US embarks on a green investment boom and western Europe adjusts to the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Gita Gopinath, deputy managing director of the IMF, signalled that

Billions of pounds of tax are being left uncollected in the UK because almost 2,300 HM Revenue & Customs tax compliance staff have been transferred to work on Brexit and Covid-19 schemes. Victoria Atkins, the Treasury minister, acknowledged in response to ministerial questions that 1,043 HMRC tax compliance staff had been assigned to work on

Some of the world’s biggest companies are facing multibillion-dollar writedowns on recent acquisitions as a wave of dealmaking gives way to a new era of economic uncertainty and higher interest rates. With a third of the global economy forecast to be in recession this year, world leaders will this week gather in Davos, Switzerland, to

The White House said on Saturday it had discovered more sensitive documents at Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, piling political and legal pressure on to the US president. In a statement, Richard Sauber, Biden’s special counsel, said he had found five pages of classified material in a room adjacent to the garage of the

Global bond markets posted a powerful rebound in the first fortnight of 2023, fanning investors’ hopes that last year’s fixed-income retreat is over. Bonds are on track for their best January performance in more than three decades, spurred by a growing conviction that inflation has peaked on both sides of the Atlantic. The Bloomberg Global

The US attorney-general has appointed a special counsel to investigate the potential mishandling of government documents that were found in President Joe Biden’s residential garage in Delaware and his former private office in Washington. Merrick Garland on Thursday said the “extraordinary circumstances” surrounding the discovery of the documents meant he had to appoint a special

Trade unions on Wednesday vowed to boycott the independent review body examining a wage settlement for NHS staff in the UK for the coming year, as ambulance workers staged fresh strikes over pay. A total of 14 unions representing more than 1mn NHS staff made clear they would not co-operate with the review body process and

Goldman Sachs has embarked on its biggest cost-cutting exercise since the financial crisis, with the Wall Street bank reviewing spending on everything from its private jets to expenses at a new technology and consumer unit. The spending review comes as Goldman starts to implement more than 3,000 job cuts, with many employees in London and

London and Brussels have secured a breakthrough in the corrosive dispute over Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trading relations, clearing the way for a new push to resolve the longstanding issue. After months of deadlock and acrimony, the UK and EU issued a joint statement proclaiming a tentative deal that would give Brussels access to the UK’s

Unions warned the government on Sunday that strikes would continue unless it reopens this year’s pay settlement for health service workers ahead of crisis talks on Monday aimed at curtailing a wave of industrial action across Britain. Leaders of the Royal College of Nursing and three unions representing ambulance workers — some of whom are

Companies have rushed to borrow money in the US corporate bond market in the first week of the year, taking advantage of easier financial conditions as investors scale back their expectations for the path of future interest rates. In the first seven days of 2023, companies from Credit Suisse to Ford issued $63.7bn worth of

Rishi Sunak has invited trade union leaders to talks on Monday in an attempt to curtail Britain’s wave of industrial action, as ministers look at a key concession to end protracted strikes on the railways. Ministers are discussing dropping a demand for train drivers rather than guards to operate carriage doors, in a move that

The UK government on Thursday announced new anti-strike legislation to enforce minimum levels of service in eight sectors including the NHS following widespread industrial action across the country. The Trades Union Congress warned unions would “fight every step of the way” to block the government’s legislation, which aims to ensure public services function adequately during

Rishi Sunak on Wednesday outlined five promises on which he wants the public to judge him at the next general election, including growing the UK economy and cutting NHS waiting lists. In his first big domestic policy speech as prime minister, Sunak said he wanted to deliver “peace of mind” to a country confronted by