UK’s first electric car forecourt in Essex nears completion

In a boost to shareholders, Daily Mail & General Trust said its payout would rise by 1 per cent to 24.1p for the year to September 30. Many other firms suspended dividends during the Covid crisis.

Public borrowing this year is higher than at any time in history outside of the First and Second World Wars, so it is not surprising that people are starting to worry about the public finances.

The FTSE100 trainer and sports fashion seller is interested in buying the whole chain and opened talks with its administrators. Debenhams went into administration in April.

Under the deal being discussed, Towerbrook Capital and Warburg Pincus would pay 35p per share to buy the debt-riddled company.

As Bank boss Andrew Bailey hailed ‘excellent news’, shares in holiday company Tui jumped 8.1 per cent while EasyJet was up 6.3 per cent and British Airways owner IAG gained 5.5 per cent.

The Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority must step in to prevent the infamous US firm ‘wrecking more lives’, campaigners have warned.

Even though the UK spends below the OECD average on R&D, its world leading research universities and laboratories do come up with the goods.

Sthree gave the market a pleasant surprise by raising its profit outlook after hiring improved in the United States and Germany.

The CMA has revealed it could investigate the tech giant over controversial changes it is making to data rules. It follows a complaint from Marketers for an Open Web.

The group’s year-on-year sales rose to £80.5million in the six months to the end of September thanks to a strong performance of its F1 2020, Project CARS 3 and Fast & Furious: Crossroads games.

Linzi Boyd has a different approach. She thinks the days of the hard sell are over and that as soon as entrepreneurs put communities then – and only then – do they have a chance of surviving

The report comes just days after Boris Johnson announced new petrol and diesel cars will be outlawed from 2030 but suggested PHEVs could get a five-year stay of execution.

Under-fire National Savings & Investments is seeking to make it easier for customers who need to provide their bank details as it prepares to stop sending out physical Premium Bond cheques.

Johnson’s 10-point plan was announced along with £12billion of government investment to help reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

My family booked three lodges in Cumbria at a cost of £250 per lodge. I then developed Covid symptoms so we had to self-isolate. Now we have to pay an additional £100 per lodge.

Although the pandemic has played into the hands of those who crave for a cashless society, there is no doubt that most people are not yet ready (and probably never will be) to discard physical cash.

If an investor wants exposure to the world’s leading tech giants – the likes of Alibaba, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Tencent – this trust may fit the bill

Christmas gift-buying is likely to happen largely online, propelling Shopify, to the top of the list of stars of the second lockdown. Here are the other potential stars.

We’ve been here before, only to be left disappointed. But in recent days some respected investment experts are again beginning to make positive noises about the UK stock market.

The Prime Minister has launched a lobbying offensive to persuade big business to spend more than £40billion on green projects over the next decade, we can reveal.

Construction began on just 2.6m square feet of space in the six months to September, a 50 per cent drop on the previous year, according to Deloitte.

Antonio Horta-Osorio, who will step down from running the bank before July, has been awarded 1.4million shares so far this year through the ‘fixed share award’ bonus scheme.

Pension funds have a terrible record at investing in infrastructure. But The Treasury is trying to encourage them into infrastructure and green technology.

There should be few cases when people of working age are not earning state pension credits, says our expert Steve Webb.

Laura Shannon has nicknamed it Hal after the malfunctioning computer in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which controls a spacecraft and tries to kill its crew.

The company helps firms to increase sales through targeted emails and text messages. For every £1 businesses spend on email marketing, they generate more than £40 in sales

Gandhi’s track record is encouraging and he owns more than 14 per cent of the business so he is incentivised to make it work. At £1.18, the shares are a buy.

It’s a particularly smart move by Sir Jim – Britain’s fifth-richest man with an estimated personal fortune of £12.2billion – whose refinery network already produces 300,000 tons of hydrogen a year.

Shorting stocks lets investment funds make money by borrowing shares from another investor, betting that a company’s share price will fall and pocketing the difference when it does.

Is build to rent the future of British renting and a game changer for those invested in traditional buy-to-rent? And what do tenants get from this new generation of corporate landlords? This is Money takes a look.

My question is can I take the full amount out without incurring costs, or am I best leaving it with the company until I am 60?

The traditional piggy bank is being ditched in favour of digital payments. But what is there on offer for children under 11 who want to bank like mum and dad?

We need to replace the double glazing in our home as it is nearly 20 years old. Should we upgrade to triple glazing? Is it worth the extra outlay?

This month Matt Moulding, who founded Hut in 2004, called on the Chancellor to reform stock market rules to allow his £6.3billion firm on to the FTSE100. If that changes, its share price would rise even more.

Shops, bars and restaurants will reopen on December 2 – but there are fears swathes of the country will be plunged back into even harsher restrictions than before the lockdown.

Music mogul Doug Putman is not a man to ignore harsh truths. Rescuing music chain HMV last year thrust him directly in the path of tech giant Amazon.

The 2018 float was a black mark in the City and a sore spot for shareholders, but former boss Andy Palmer appears sanguine. The auto industry veteran was ousted in May.

Administrators for the bakery chain have lodged a claim in the High Court against Grant Thornton for ‘negligent audits’ of its accounts. Patisserie Valerie collapsed last year.

Mobius, one of the best-known investors globally, said that taxes could go up ‘radically’ under President-elect Biden for individuals and businesses.

The social media giant has lost a legal case to overturn an order by the watchdog that demanded Facebook freeze a host of business activities while officials investigated its takeover of Giphy.

Anglo, which employs 90,000 people across six continents, has kitted out staff at its offices and mines with the technology to stop them accidentally breaking social distancing rules.

Crowds flocking to stores in Wales since they reopened on November 9 have almost doubled sales in some locations compared with the same period last year, sources told us.

Chief executive Joe Garner said the building society is looking at how it can ‘safely go further’ with loans to customers who need to borrow 90 per cent of a property’s value.

WeWork allows companies to sign shorter leases than traditional office landlords – which typically tie businesses in for at least three years – and adapts their office spaces at short notice.

If you wanted to choose a moment when the UK starts to direct its economy away from Europe and towards the rest of the world, this is as good as any.

Boss Steve Rowe is understood to have taken a lead role in M&S’s examination of the business, which would be part of a major overhaul of the company’s clothing strategy.

It might be tempting to click on the obvious, but there are plenty of alternatives. Also, though supermarkets are providing a vital service, they don’t need to be a one-stop shop.

Our research shows that customers of both Barclays and Tesco Bank can get £500 sent to their homes via Royal Mail special delivery – at no cost. NatWest also offers a cash-to-home service.

Critics claim the fees put investors off switching because they know it could land them with a bill costing several hundred pounds. But the Financial Conduct Authority has decided not to act.

Toby Walne was initially hooked by the image of loveable labradors, which normally cost £1,700. So he thought he would see if he could snap up a canine bargain. But what he found was just another scam.

The company, which makes accounting and human resources software for small businesses, wants to pump cash into its Sage Business Cloud division.

This year, entrepreneurs are building in resilience at their core as the pandemic has hit businesses across the globe – and hard. We spoke to three people who launched their businesses in the middle of it all.

British Gas has been charged the most over the past decade, paying out £45.5m, according to analysis of Ofgem data by energy switching site, Flipper.

Across the FTSE All-Share, the gains have totalled almost £250bn. The FTSE 100 has now risen for three weeks in a row – its longest winning streak since June last year.

The retailer is set to reveal an increase in revenue over the past six months, with investors hopeful that the chain will report strong continued demand in recent months.

The telecom group’s chief executive Philip Jansen (pictured) said a deal could be on the table next year once a regulatory review into full-fibre broadband networks finishes.

Much has been learned about Covid-19 since the pandemic erupted in March and it is amazing that in such a relatively short period at least three vaccines are in sight.

Government borrowing hit £214.9bn in the first seven months of the financial year, as the effects of increased spending were intensified by falling tax receipts.

Those few pennies of dividends per share that are so important over time. They may not look or sound much but they can dramatically affect the value of all our long term investments.

Karen Cook (pictured) led the Goldman Sachs team advising British insurer RSA as it was bought by Canada’s Intact and Denmark’s Tryg for £7.2bn.

The gritters use heavily-polluting seven-litre diesel engines. The news comes just days after Boris Johnson’s announced he will accelerate the ban on new cars with combustion engines to 2030.

The car itself isn’t going anywhere – just the way it is propelled – so how much difference will the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars make?

Businesses could have to redo their sums for savers who transferred out of their pension schemes as well as those who stayed, following the latest ruling in a complex court saga.

With barely six weeks of 2020 left to go, the UK’s seven largest house builders have reported housing completions are down, on average, by 35% from a year ago.

The Chancellor Rishi Sunak does not live in never-never land. He knows that the ‘magic money tree’ is a myth and as the pandemic retreats, he will have to take an axe to annual borrowing.

Tens of thousands of elderly women could be owed an estimated £100m in state pension after a major blunder, which was uncovered by Steve Webb and This is Money.

Hydrogen companies were given a boost this week after the Prime Minister vowed to inject £500million to ‘turn water into energy’ as part of a 10-point plan for Britain’s green recovery.

Garda World chief executive Stephan Cretier said he will create a ‘centre of expertise’ in Canada for training and research following a successful takeover of the British security business.

Grandparents have four grandchildren on average, so they could spend about £416 or an estimated £2.4bn in total, according to the research from insurer SunLife.

Since the pandemic has left many of us working from home, there has been a significant increase in homeowners inadvertently calling out rogue locksmiths.

Since working from home, I am using more devices than ever before. Does it matter if we have lots of devices plugged in to one adaptor? What can we do to be more safe?

Manchester City midfielder Kevin de Bruyne and Love Island winner Amber Gill were among the 3,000 paid to promote the new debit card, which the FCA said was operating without authorisation.

Shoppers have been warned to take care when looking for cheap deals, as fraudsters look to exploit households purchasing Christmas gifts.

Apple, led by chief exec Tim Cook (pictured) has revealed firms that make less than £750,000 per year would pay 15p per cent commission on app purchases and in-app sales, not 30 per cent.

Just a week ago the Chancellor Rishi Sunak (pictured) was wittering on in the Commons about renewing Britain’s position as ‘the world’s pre-eminent financial centre.’

As the coronavirus pandemic drives consumers online, the postal service revealed it is making more money from parcels than letters for the first time in its 504-year history.

The world’s second-largest cinema chain, which owes £6.2 billion to its lenders, wants to slash its rents and potentially shutter swathes of sites as it battles to survive the Covid-19 pandemic.

Boris Johnson’s drive to ‘end the era of retreat’ and bolster Britain’s defence spending was music to traders’ ears. Shares in military contractors advanced after he twisted Rishi Sunak’s arm.

A classic mistake for British companies is to underestimate regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority. Compare the Market discovered this recently.

Under takeover rules, any group which takes a stake of more than 30 per cent of a business is required to make an offer to buy the whole business.

Kingfisher’s UK sales were up by a fifth, thanks to a 23.9 per cent rise at B&Q and a 17.4 per cent increase at Screwfix, which it also owns. This helped it repay £23 million of furlough cash.

The holiday and airline group has slumped in the first half and said it remains cautious over next summer despite good news on possible coronavirus jabs.

The Competition and Markets Authority will review the planned tie-up between Telefonica and Liberty Global after Brus- sels-based regulators handed over the reins ahead of Brexit.

A total of 695 jobs will be affected, out of 3,500, mainly from the firm’s ‘non-customer-facing residential and smaller firms (SME) business’.

Britain won’t be the target audience, though. Mercedes-Maybach products are very much aimed at the affluent markets in the Middle East and specifically China, Korea and Russia.

A quarter of motorists polled said they get nervous driving on unfamiliar roads in the dark and another fifth said they feel anxious when driving on unlit roads at night.

Drivers will still be able to purchase new hybrid cars until 2035 despite the 2030 ban on petrols and diesels, but only those that the government says can ‘drive a significant distance without emitting carbon’.

Adrian Lowcock, head of personal investing at Willis Owen, outlines the big themes that he thinks will play out for investors in the future.

Bridgend in Wales and Waltham Forest in London were placed joint second on the list compiled by property website Zoopla. Homes in those areas take 24 days on average to sell.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest the accelerated ban will have very little impact on the new cars manufacturers would have been selling to us in 109 months’ time anyway.

Tickr is an investment app designed to help the ‘next generation of investors’ make money while having a positive impact on the world, while its newest service encourages users to become carbon neutral.

Penny Loseby, 71, pictured below with husband Paul, missed out on £16,000 over seven years. When she tried to dispute her low payments, she was ignored or fobbed off on repeated occasions.

British businesses which sell and transport imported goods are facing spiralling costs of thousands of pounds and delays to their shipments as problems continue to affect the UK’s biggest container port. 

When you talk cars, it rarely turns into a chat about petrol stations – but discuss electric cars and charging inevitably crops up. Does that still need to be the case? Sadly, yes.

Thanks to the pandemic, final order dates from many retailers are being moved forwards to ensure all parcels can be delivered on time.

Savers can barely stop their money being eaten away by the rising cost of living if they leave it an easy-access account, but those with Britain’s biggest banks could be losing £69 a year after inflation rose.

Micro Focus specialises in wringing profit out of old computer systems it acquires by selling software and maintenance services to banks and retailers which use them.

The self-branded ‘ethical’ lender, which has more than 3.3m customers, has been on the block for months as its current hedge fund owners look to offload it.

RSA Insurance Group, which dates back to 1706, has recommended that shareholders approve a joint 685p per share offer from rivals Intact of Canada and Tryg of Denmark.

Boris Johnson’s green revolution is the type of project that could reinvigorate so-called ‘foundation’ industries that produce the raw materials needed to make other products down the line.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is committed to building large and small nuclear reactors. The strategy promises to plough £525m into projects, which could support 10,000 jobs.

As we know from Carillion, Arcadia-Top Shop owner Taveta and other recent corporate imbroglios, a line-up of seemingly robust independent directors does not stop businesses going wrong.

With many different types of hybrid cars and a swirling of acronyms being used across the sector, here’s an easy guide and jargon buster to help you through the minefield of electric vehicle terms.

Enthusiasm from institutional investors, investment banks and payment companies and continued money printing by central banks means the price of bitcoin is close to its all-time high.

The Green Homes Grant scheme has been extended by a year, the Government has announced today.

The FTSE 100 closed up 19.91 points at 6385.24 and the pound was at $1.33 against the dollar.

An undercover investigation reveals the sinister tactics used by door-to-door sellers, with no regard for safety, to coax their targets into switching broadband providers.

It meant property values in the UK were £11,000 higher on average in September than a year earlier, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Comparing September with April this year – when a strict lockdown was in place across the UK – the Association of British Insurers found a sharp increase in people dipping into their pension pots.

New analysis from broker Liberum suggests investors put their money in bargain-price stocks that have fallen considerably in value this year, but which could shoot up.

The Tide Charity has been hailed by Government minister Paul Scully for raising £160,000 in a week to help small businesses hit by coronavirus. Applications for a grant will open on November 30.

Baroness Karren Brady is is stepping up as a champion of small companies in the Covid-19 crisis, by backing the charity set up by small business bank Tide.

The National Grid said the ‘energy industry will now have to focus on ensuring there is adequate network capacity in the right locations to facilitate ultra-rapid charging.’

Robo-adviser Nutmeg has joined forces with investment giant JPMorgan Asset Management to launch a portfolio range of both passive and active ETFs, and with ESG integration.

SSE said the estimated impact is slightly lower than expected but the group’s full-year earnings are down, with the blow set to be between £150 million and £250 million.

Shares in Hornby last month soared nearly 30 per cent after the model railway firm revealed sales had risen 33 per cent over six months, as more people took up hobbies in lockdown.

The supermarket said sales of frozen turkey crowns, which serve three or four people, are up 230 per cent on last year. And sales of Christmas trees, lights and puddings are already booming.

Just a year ago, British savers could improve the returns on their deposits by locking away their cash for a year with a fixed-rate account or bond paying an average of nearly 1.3 per cent in interest.

Mark and Cerys Jenkins were at home in the Welsh valleys with sons Sami, now 16 and Lewi, six, in November 2016 when heavy rainfall caused a culvert in a neighbouring street to overflow.

The pandemic has forced us inside – and while many of us are used to buying online, some will have to do the bulk of their shopping on the internet for the first time.

There is a good reason most major energy suppliers ditched doorstep selling nearly a decade ago. And that’s because it is a mis-selling scandal just waiting to happen.

Don Forsyth, 61, wants to unlock the money tied up in an old pension. But because it comes with valuable guarantees and is worth more than £30,000 it needs a financial adviser to sign off.

Around 56 unauthorised cash withdrawals totalling more than £18,000 were made from my late sister’s Barclays account from July 2018 to April 2019. All the transactions occurred at Barclays ATMs.

Rates are set to continue drifting downwards, but a one or two-year fix could help protect your cash from inflation. A typical 12-month fixed deal now pays less than half what it did a year ago.

National Savings and Investments wants more customers to use its website, and will soon stop sending Premium Bond prizes in the post after more than 60 years.

Hut Group founder and chief exec Matt Moulding gets £19.4m a year as company landlord and, with his wife Jodie (pictured), owns a £553m stake in the firm.

AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould described Easyjet’s annual numbers as ‘ugly reading’, as the pandemic halved the number of passengers it flew to 48m and wiped 53 per cent off revenues.

Vodafone said Vantage will seek to pay out 60 per cent of its recurring cash flow as dividends. The telecoms giant will spin off the mobile towers business in the first quarter of 2021.

The parent company of TSB, Spanish lender Sabadell, is in talks to be taken over by its larger rival, BBVA. This would potentially leave TSB’s future up in the air.

Tesla, the electric car maker run by Elon Musk (pictured) soared again in value after being selected to join the prestigious S&P 500 index of the biggest listed companies in the US.

The new Royal Liverpool was meant to be opened in 2017 – but the 13-storey building is five years behind schedule. It is a towering reminder of construction giant Carillion’s collapse.

Hospitality chiefs and shopkeepers told MPs on the Business Committee the ‘brutal’ measures have led to mass redundancies as firms miss out on ‘crucial’ Christmas trade.

Jane Shields offloaded £2.4m worth of stock yesterday, selling 35,000 shares for £67.62 each, just days after Lord Wolfson, Next’s chief exec, dumped 150,000 shares at a price of £67.87 apiece.

Even if there is a ‘slimmed-down’ Brexit deal output will grow by just 7.2 per cent. In normal years that would be a huge gain, but it pales in comparison to the record slump due to the pandemic.

I started a new job, but have been told I will only be paid for overtime work every six months. I haven’t been given a written contract yet so can’t check my terms. How should I approach this?

‘We’ve had three discoveries in three years in three jurisdictions,’ says Vincent Mascolo, the chief executive of IronRidge Resources.

There are models that have been brought to the drawing board in the last decade by Porsche that haven’t made it to production, for one reason or another.

Nearly one in five small businesses have seen a 70% decrease in income, according to new research. For many, it has meant adapting to survive.

Those who make the move to Virgin Money’s digital current account, launched last December, can earn themselves 15 bottles of wine as a welcome bonus, which the bank claims are worth £180.

It doubles as a relaxing sanctuaries for drivers and passengers complete with a comfortable sofa in the rear, fold-down dashboard day-bed,dining table, and even a leafy green potted plant.

Credit card providers are stealthily slicing 0% balance transfer windows leaving borrowers facing shorter time periods in which to repay their debts.

On the London Stock Exchange many of the companies hit hardest by Covid restrictions including British Airways-owner IAG, Rolls-Royce and Cineworld were among the biggest risers.

Orlebar Brown joins Hotel Chocolat, Homebase and Elemis, which already use The Hut’s technology. Hut shares have jumped by more than a quarter since the company floated in September.

Vaccine sceptics and big pharma critics may need to adjust their thinking now that the Moderna Covid-19 jab has come through trials even more fighting fit than rival Pfizer.

Thousands of firms forced to close down when the UK went into lockdown in March have been left in limbo after insurance companies refused to make vital payouts.

The Natural Capital Strategy fund, launched by Swiss fund manager Lombard Odier, will invest in companies which are tapping into renewable natural resources.

Chief exec Nick Read said Vodafone’s services have been ‘critical for society’ as lockdowns forced people to work from home, prompting many to invest in more reliable wi-fi and make longer phone calls.

China Three Gorges, China Resources Power, the State Development & Investment Corporation and China General Nuclear could be involved in providing one quarter of UK power consumption.

Some 72% of those with a landline say they only have one because their broadband package requires it, according to data from Compare the Market.

The specially-created city environments at the Future Mobility Campus Ireland in Shannon Free Zone business park, near Limerick. It consists of 7.5-miles of roads simulating busy urban environments.