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One of the largest investors in Thames Water has given its support for the utility as other industry figures sought to stave off any possible nationalisation of the sector. The £90bn Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), which has a near 20 per cent stake in Thames Water, said on Friday: “We have given our backing to

Investment bankers’ advisory fees have plunged to the lowest level in almost a decade as the industry suffers from a wave of job cuts because of a prolonged slowdown in deal activity. Fees for completed mergers and acquisitions globally plummeted 35 per cent in the first half of the year to $12.8bn compared with 2022,

Top Russian army general Sergei Surovikin has been detained as the Kremlin cracks down on Wagner sympathisers following the militia’s failed mutiny last week. Surovikin, a senior Russian general known to have a good relationship with Wagner’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, has not been heard from for several days and has been detained, according to three

Ukraine has hit back at doubters over the progress of its summer counteroffensive, insisting recent modest gains against Russian occupiers were merely a “preview” of a much bigger push to come. Oleksiy Reznikov, Ukraine’s defence minister, told the Financial Times that the liberation of a group of villages under Russian occupation in recent weeks was

Russia dropped charges against participants in the Wagner paramilitary force’s armed insurrection and said the group had agreed to hand over its weaponry. The announcements on Tuesday came in the wake of the deal between the Kremlin and Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and appeared to mark progress towards resolving the stand-off. The FSB, Russia’s main

Russia has shown images of defence minister Sergei Shoigu visiting troops, the first time he has been pictured in public since warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin’s weekend insurrection against senior military leadership. The brief video, posted on Monday by the defence ministry, showed Shoigu inspecting a Russian command point and listening to a report from subordinates about

Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin has said his Wagner mercenaries had abandoned their insurrection against the country’s armed forces just hours before a potential assault on Moscow, signalling a possible end to the first coup attempt in Russia for three decades. In a deal brokered by Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko, Prigozhin said his convoy of troops,

Vladimir Putin has admitted the situation in Rostov-on-Don is “complicated” after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s forces seized command points in the southern city and called on the Wagner mercenary group’s rank-and-file to lay down their arms. “Those who organised and prepared the military uprising, who took arms against their comrades, have betrayed Russia. And will pay for it.

Global central banks are entering a new phase in their battle with inflation as economists warn that recessions will be the price of achieving shared 2 per cent goals. Headline rates of inflation across most of the world’s economies have fallen back sharply since the autumn but core rates — which exclude volatile categories such

The Bank of England is expected to raise interest rates by a quarter point to 4.75 per cent on Thursday, with increasing calls for tougher action to fight persistent high inflation. Headline inflation stuck at 8.7 per cent in May, according to worse than expected data on Wednesday, with core inflation — which excludes volatile

UK inflation remained stuck at 8.7 per cent in May, higher than expectations of a drop to 8.4 per cent, marking the fourth month in a row that price rises have exceeded forecasts. With the cost of a broad range of goods and services rising sharply, the figures will reinforce expectations of multiple interest rate

Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADQ held detailed talks to take Wall Street investment bank Lazard private, in a move that underlined the oil-rich emirate’s ambitions to acquire a western financial services company. The talks were held this year between Lazard, led by outgoing chief executive Ken Jacobs, and ADQ, led by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed

The cost of a two-year fixed-rate mortgage in the UK rose above 6 per cent on Monday and two-year gilt yields rose to their highest level for 15 years, piling more pressure on homeowners and Rishi Sunak’s government. Mortgage costs have been rising sharply over the past week, ahead of an expected increase in interest

Beijing’s bid to persuade investors to value its giant state-owned enterprises according to their socialist credentials, rather than by conventional western capitalist measures, has flopped after a rally in their shares fizzled this month. The stocks rose after officials in November called for the creation of a “valuation system with Chinese characteristics” that departed from

UK households that come to the end of fixed-rate mortgage deals next year face an average £2,900 increase in annual payments, putting Rishi Sunak under pressure to defuse an election-year time bomb. The estimated increase in payments by the Resolution Foundation think-tank reflects concern that the UK has a worse inflation problem than other countries

Job cuts at the largest US banks this year are on course to surpass 11,000 as Wall Street contends with the worst recruitment market since the financial crisis following a pandemic-era hiring binge. Citigroup this week became the latest big US bank to announce significant job cuts, telling investors that it planned to complete 5,000

Boris Johnson, Britain’s former prime minister, has been condemned for lying to parliament over the Covid “partygate” scandal, in a damning report that casts doubt on whether he can ever stage a political comeback. The report by a cross-party committee of MPs published on Thursday is a searing indictment of Johnson’s conduct in high office,

Big asset managers are buying up UK government debt again, tempted by the higher yields on offer after a much faster sell-off than in other major bond markets. Two-year gilts suffered a sharp sell-off on Tuesday, with yields surging 0.25 percentage points to 4.89 per cent, the highest level since 2008. That followed official figures

MPs will grill top executives from the UK financial watchdog next month over the regulator’s handling of misconduct allegations against the hedge fund manager Crispin Odey. The move comes after the Financial Times revealed that 13 women alleged they had been sexually harassed or assaulted by Odey over the past 25 years. The revelations have

EU funds managed by Odey Asset Management are discussing restrictions on investors’ withdrawals as part of emergency measures to contain the fallout of sexual misconduct allegations against the hedge fund manager’s founder. It comes as the firm announced a series of management changes to funds run by Crispin Odey ahead of the market opening on