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Net immigration to the UK rose to a record high of 606,000 in 2022, driven by rising numbers of people from outside the EU, including from Ukraine and Hong Kong. The figures fell short of estimates of about 700,000 but remain far above the Conservative government’s 2010 pledge to reduce net immigration to the “tens

UK inflation dropped to 8.7 per cent in April, a smaller fall than the Bank of England expected, raising pressure on the central bank to keep increasing interest rates.  The figure will come as a blow to ministers and the central bank because the fall in consumer price inflation from 10.1 per cent in March

The governor of the Bank of England has conceded there are “very big lessons to learn” in setting monetary policy after the central bank failed to forecast the recent rise and persistence of inflation. Along with other members of the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee, Andrew Bailey told the House of Commons Treasury select committee on

Meta has been hit with a €1.2bn fine by the EU and ordered to suspend transfers of user data to the US, in the largest penalty to be imposed against a Big Tech company in the bloc over privacy violations. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, which oversees the General Data Protection Regulation, on Monday handed down

China said that US chipmaker Micron Technology’s products posed “serious network security risks” as it banned operators of key infrastructure from buying them, in its first big measure against an American semiconductor group. The Cyberspace Administration of China on Sunday announced that the company, which is the biggest US maker of memory chips, “posed significant

The G7 has issued its strongest condemnation of China, as the world’s most advanced economies step up their response to what they say are rising military and economic security threats posed by Beijing. In broad criticism of China over everything from its militarisation of the South China Sea to its use of “economic coercion”, the

James Gorman plans to step down as chief executive of Morgan Stanley within the next year after more than a decade at the top of the Wall Street bank he turned into a wealth management juggernaut. Gorman, 64, told the bank’s annual shareholder meeting on Friday that the “specific timing of the CEO transition has

Calpers, the biggest US public pension plan, is considering bigger bets on private equity despite despite growing fears that higher interest rates will curb the industry’s returns. Chief executive Marcie Frost said that the $442bn-in-assets retirement fund, one of the world’s biggest investors in private equity, will start an extensive review of its holdings in

Soaring UK inflation is not the result of higher company profit margins, even for food prices, a former Bank of England interest rate setter has said, echoing similar findings by current members of the Monetary Policy Committee. Michael Saunders, senior economic adviser at consultancy Oxford Economics, said on Monday that “greedflation”, where businesses drive up

To many, Thomas Flohr is a genius who took one look at the private jet industry and thought he could do better. A self-described “asset finance guy”, he started as a first-time jet owner trying to “sweat the asset” and VistaJet was born. Nineteen years later, with hundreds of aircraft, the 63-year-old is an aviation

Andrew Bailey has acknowledged for the first time the Bank of England is dealing with a UK wage price spiral as he pledged to raise interest rates as far “as necessary” to get inflation back to the bank’s 2 per cent target. Speaking to the British Chambers of Commerce annual conference in London, the BoE

UK wage growth showed little sign of easing in the three months to March, according to official figures that will reinforce policymakers’ concerns over the pressures fuelling inflation. The Office for National Statistics said average private sector earnings, excluding bonuses, were 7 per cent higher than a year earlier, unchanged from an upwardly revised reading

Howard Marks, the co-founder of $172bn investment group Oaktree Capital Management, has warned that the boom in private credit will soon be tested as higher interest rates and slower economic growth heap pressure on corporate America. The 77-year-old billionaire told the Financial Times that big asset managers had competed aggressively to lend to the largest

Russia’s defence ministry claimed a long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive had begun, pointing to intensifying attacks in eastern Ukraine over the past 48 hours. The ministry said on Friday that Ukraine had launched 26 assaults along a 60-mile stretch of the frontline near Bakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar, involving more than a thousand troops and

PwC is racing to contain the global fallout of an Australian leak scandal on its business after it emerged that the firm used confidential government tax plans to advise tech clients. Emails released by an Australian senate committee last week showed that PwC had used information received during its work with the government to win

The Bank of England has raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.5 per cent, as it warned it would not hit its inflation target until 2025. A seven to two majority on the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee said the rise was needed to bring inflation back under control as

US inflation was slightly weaker than forecast in April, bolstering Treasuries and Wall Street stocks on hopes that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes are bringing price rises under control. Consumer price inflation dipped to an annual rate of 4.9 per cent, its lowest level since April 2021. Economists had expected it to remain steady at

Investment banks are turning more bullish on sterling as it trades close to a one-year high against the dollar and a five-month high against the euro, on expectations that the UK economy is performing better than many had feared. The pound was trading at $1.2618 on Tuesday, close to the $1.2688 it hit on Monday,

The G7-led price cap on Russian oil exports has forced the Kremlin to raise the tax burden on producers, dealing a fresh blow to an energy sector already struggling with western sanctions, according to officials from the western coalition. An analysis of the tax change by a member of the G7-led coalition, which was shared

About an hour and a half into the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, just as the august baritone of Richard Dimbleby proclaimed “the moment of the Queen’s crowning is come”, a BBC camera cut to a small boy, his hair glossy with punitive brushing, the splayed fingers of his hands pressed against each other in