Marketing Newscast

Welcome back to Political Insight’s Daily Business News, and a very Happy New Year to you!

UK businesses are more worried about their tax burden than at any other point in the last eight years, according to the latest quarterly survey from The British Chamber of Commerce (BCC). 63% of firms surveyed over the final quarter of 2024 cited tax as a worry, up from 48% in the third quarter. Shevaun Haviland, director general of the BCC attributed the fears to Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first Budget, which hiked employers’ national insurance to 15% and dropped the threshold at which the levy becomes payable on salaries from £9,100 to just £5,000. “Business confidence has slumped in a pressure cooker of rising costs and taxes. Firms of all shapes and sizes are telling us the National Insurance hike is particularly damaging,” she said, adding: “Businesses are already cutting back on investment and say they will have to put up prices in the coming months. The Government is rightly coming up with long-term strategies for industry, infrastructure and trade. But those plans won’t help businesses struggling now.” Only 49% of firms surveyed anticipated an increase in turnover this year, and over half (55%) said they plan to raise prices in the next three months, up from 39% who said the same in the third quarter. Nearly a quarter (24%) of respondents also said they have cut back investment plans, up from 18% the quarter before.

The Home Builders Federation, meanwhile, is warning that higher taxes will undermine Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s plans to build 1.5m homes by the end of the decade. CEO Neil Jefferson appeared to suggest the Government’s first Budget has killed off confidence among property developers, saying the “economic and policy climate does not yet feel particularly pro-development”. The employer National Insurance hike has significantly increased costs for smaller developers, he claimed, with some fearing they could be tipped into administration. Jefferson also cited a £3.4bn ‘cladding tax’ set to be charged on all new residential buildings from Autumn next year as part of the Government’s plans to make builders pay for remedial works to properties in the wake on the Grenfell Tower disaster. Housebuilders are already required to pay a 4% tax on profits exceeding £25m per annum to fix fire safety defects under policies introduced by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, hence this second levy is seen widely to be unfair and a further dampener on investment.

Economic Secretary to the Treasury and City minister Tulip Siddiq, whose responsibilities in Government include “countering economic crime, money laundering and illicit finance,” is at the centre of a corruption row related to the revelation by the Financial Times she was gifted a London flat by a person with links to her aunt, the deposed Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Hasina. Siddiq was reported to have been given the two-bedroom property near King’s Cross in 2004 by Abdul Motif, a property developer with links to Hasina, who leads the Awami League party in Bangladesh. The FT cited Land Registry documents revealing Siddiq took over the property from Motif, a transaction which involved no payment. Siddiq does not currently live in the property but declares rental income from two flats in her register of MP’s interests, one of which she was reprimanded over by the standards commissioner last year for failing to disclose. Last month, Siddiq was named by the Anti-Corruption Commission in Bangladesh alongside Hasina in relation to an investigation which claimed the family was involved in brokering a 2013 deal with Russia for a nuclear power plant in Bangladesh in which large sums of cash were embezzled for their own private use. The family has denied the allegations. Associated Press photographs taken at the time of the deal show Siddiq attending the signing ceremony at the Kremlin with Hasina, in the presence of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Sheikh Hasina fled to India in August following mass protests that ended her 20 years in power. She is the subject of an arrest warrant in Bangladesh over her alleged involvement in crimes against humanity. During her time as an MP since 2015, Siddiq has been challenged on more than one occasion about her “despotic” aunt’s behaviour, which included reports of government critics ‘disappearing,’ but she has repeatedly refused to condemn her or to intervene, saying her aunt would not listen to her. A spokesperson for Siddiq said: “Any suggestion that Tulip Siddiq’s ownership of this property, or any other property is in any way linked to support for the Awami League, would be categorically wrong.”

Lidl’s Christmas and New Year sales in the UK surpassed £1bn driven, it says, by shoppers hunting for bargain party food and drink over the four-week festive period. The German discount supermarket chain, owned by Schwarz retail group, said sales increased 7% year-on-year overall, but that sales of its Partytime range jumped by 32%, while Champagne sales grew 25%. Customers bought more than 16m pigs in blankets and 8m stuffing balls.

Meanwhile, Aldi has been crowned Britain’s cheapest supermarket of 2024 by consumer group Which? after its analysis of thousands of grocery prices, but beating Lidl only narrowly, by an average of around £1.50 each month on a basket of 56 branded and own-label groceries, including milk, carrots, baked beans, a Hovis loaf and Birds Eye peas. Tesco shoppers using their Tesco Clubcard would have spent £111.22 for an equivalent £101.29 Aldi shop, making it the cheapest of the big chains, but Sainsbury’s customers with a Nectar card would only have paid less than £1 more, on average. Waitrose was again the most expensive supermarket, with the cost of Which? groceries averaging £129.83, nearly £30 more than Aldi.

Imagination Technologies, one of Britain’s biggest microchip companies has been put up for sale by its Chinese-backed owners in response to claims the Hertfordshire based firm transferred core technology to two companies developing artificial intelligence technology for the Chinese military. Canyon Bridge, the private equity firm funded by the state-owned investment group China Reform, took the company off the London Stock Exchange in 2017. Then Prime Minister Theresa May allowed the sale, although then President Donald Trump blocked Canyon’s purchase of US Human Resources tech company Lattice. According to Bloomberg, Canyon has already received approaches for the British business through its long-time adviser Lazard.

Nyobolt, the British electric car battery manufacturer, has warned it could run out of cash by March unless it secures new funding. The firm, which makes batteries that can charge from 10% to 80% in just five minutes, and is a spin-off from the University of Cambridge, has almost spent £50m it raised from investors two years ago. Its latest accounts, signed off in November, said the company made a £20m loss on revenues of £67,000 in 2023. However, a spokesperson told The Telegraph that it had signed new contracts since the accounts were published, and that the company was on the cusp of receiving new funding. “In 2024, Nyobolt started earning revenues from customers and had contracts valued over $120m (£97m). We will be announcing further contracts in the first quarter of 2025,” they said, which “will see us through 2025 and into profitability”.

Aspen Insurance, a Lloyd’s of London underwriter, has filed paperwork seeking permission to list shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), ending London’s hopes of securing the £3bn float, The Telegraph reports.

Ricardo, the London-listed engineering, environmental, and strategic consulting company, has finalised the sale of its Ricardo Defense division to Proteus Enterprises and Gladstone Investment Corporation through GPD Acquisition for $85m (£67.5m). The proceeds from the transaction will be used to fund Ricardo's acquisition of an 85% stake in E3 Advisory, a leading Australian infrastructure advisory firm.

Tesla has reported a decline in annual deliveries for the first time in its history, delivering 1.79m vehicles in 2024 compared to 1.81m in 2023. The electric vehicle firm said it faced slowing growth, increased competition, and operational challenges, despite price cuts and other incentives, as CEO Elon Musk had warned earlier in the year. However, Musk also projected 20% to 30% growth in 2025, driven by plans to introduce lower-cost and autonomous vehicles.